principles of Engineering
During my sophomore year, I took Principles of Engineering. It was a full-year course and one of my favorites. I really became passionate about mechanical and structural design during this course and I am proud of what we built throughout the year.
Distinguished on National Assessment
Simple Machine
For this project we were tasked to design, build, and test a compound machine that will be able to lift a resistance load of approximately 30 newtons at least 1 foot in the air. Overall the project went really well, my group (Asher, Sophia, and I) came up with an idea and executed it well, with speed and precision.
Before this, we spent the first few weeks of school working on simple machines, understanding them and concepts like a mechanical advantage, etc...
For our simple Machine out of all the ideas we generated, we went with Asher's idea. We went with a compound Machine that went through out multiple wheel and axles and sprocket and chains, to a pulley block and tackle system. We decided at first in the design to have it be two sided tho we scratched that in the end. We had to scratch it because it created to much friction on the system. We also had to loosen the gears because they were to tight in order for it to let the thing drop on its own.
Electric Game
In this project, we were assigned to Meet with our clients (3rd graders) and design an arcade game using electricity and circuitry. In the end, we chose a game that I call "Defender" with a Pokemon theme. It's sort of an automatic robot foosball table. My partner, Sonny, and I were at a disadvantage to the rest of the class due to the fact we were the only group of 2 but we managed to finish with an amazing final product. We faced issues along the road with defenders hitting metal which was quickly fixed. Motors and gears breaking was another problem. We had to fix this by doing surgical procedures into the machine so we didn't have to take apart the whole thing to replace it which was stressful, but ended up working out in the end.
Our Final Product turned out great. It took 3 weeks to fully design and build the project with an average of 6 hours a week on it. It functions very well with very few little issues. In the end, we were a little rushed so the ascetic design isn't the best but what matters the most is the mechanics and electrical components. The design changed a little throughout the process but not too much was changed from the first design besides the launcher mechanism, and little tiny details here and there.
Balsa Bridge
For this project, we had to design a balsa wood bridge. I didn't expect my bridge to do as well as it did. I spent a lot of time on this project, mainly building the bridge. I am very precise and didn't like to be inaccurate or have bad cuts. In the end, I think I did very well all things considered.
Expected Breaking Point
I think it will break here (the two bars in red and the third is the one my finger is covering) because the weight was being applied down right on this area, so they would have the most stress on them.
Actual Breaking Point
I think it broke here because of some human error because the point it broke at was very close to the highest stress number. So, maybe I placed the bridge a little unevenly, so more stress was on the side that broke, then the other side broke.
Stats
My bridge weighed 0.018 lbs. and the max load it took was 55 lbs. The efficiency factor of 3055%. You can hear the excitement in the video as the load kept increasing during the test.
I ended up breaking the all-time school record with my design!
warehouse robot
In this project, we had almost complete freedom and control over our project. We had to create our own problem statement, based on what robot we wanted to build and then our own design statement. The only required thing that we had to do was create a physical robot, and code it to do a certain task.
My partner Miko and I choose to do a Warehouse robot. This robot would travel through a warehouse, grab certain boxes based on the worker's request (we chose to do it by color cubes), and then bring the cubes back to them.
Problems & Solutions
1. Claw rail couldn't run because screws from the gear train would keep running into other screws trying to hold the piece holding and sliding the rail system--> Put another rail on top of the other
2. Couldn't support claw and run properly with one rail on outward motion rail --> Put another double rail on the side of it to support it up.
3. Claw was too heavy it would fall over when it extended outward --> First solution was to try to counterweigh it (not a great solution). The second was to build a wheel system holding it up on the inside of the base, this didn't work because when it tried to extend outward the wheel system would slide with it instead of staying put. The third and final solution is another rail system holding it up and allowing it to move both ways with ease.
4. Robot would not see the blocks properly --> Use darker blocks so it could distinguish
The Code
5. Code wouldn't work properly
- Wouldn't go out enough --> used vision sensor code for width to move claw outward until the cube was the correct width
- Return to base wouldn't work --> Used while loop instead of if loop.
- Many other problems...we just kept working on the next solution until we finished
This robot took a very very very long time with many setbacks and problems we had to find solutions to, which for most I would say we found great solutions.
As I look back, I learned so much about mechanical and robotic engineering during this project, and what I am most proud of is that we did not quit and even though we had chosen to challenge ourselves well beyond the assignment requirements, and then ran into problem after problem, we stayed in the work and found a way.
hydraulic project
In this project, we had to create a hydraulic system capable of lifting more than the input weight up to 1 inch at minimum. We decided to use a 30ml syringe as the input force, and the output force was a 20ml syringe. The 20ml syringe pushed a first-class level down in order to lift the weights. We lifted 3 pounds using 2 pounds.
This project wasn't our best because it was kind of rushed due to the fact we both we going to be gone for a whole day for First robotics competition. But we did a good job and still got the best efficiency in the class at 82.5%.
projectile launcher
The final project of the year was a very fun one, a projectile launcher. In this project, we learned about how to calculate the stats of a launcher which include initial velocity, angles of launch, distance based on initial velocity and angle, etc. My partner was Sonny, who I previously worked with on the arcade game project.
The assignment was to create a device to launch a golf ball. Many people created a slingshot design.
We decided to create two wheel spinning system commonly seen in real life used on baseball pitching machines to challenge ourselves on our last project of the year.
Some of the problems we faced were:
- Motors kept overheating resulting in some inaccuracy and falling behind on time.
- I pulled "the classic Luke" and overcomplicated things, taking the assignment way beyond what was expected.
- Calculations were off in the shooting challenge.
It was a success, so much so that our launcher on a test run put a hole through the wall in the school. Oops.
We had to turn down the velocity and move the testing outside for the final run.