STEM year 3 is mainly focused on leadership and presentation. All of our projects tried to incorporate elements of entrepreneurship and the design process, but there were some projects in between the let us flex our pure engineering skills that we built in the first two years of the course. We worked on developing skills in rapid modeling, where you build a small structure in a very small amount of time. We also broke off into groups and created two egg saving devices: an Egg Cart and an Egg Catcher. The rapid modeling was more skill based, but the egg projects were about practicing our ability to write a comprehensive engineering journal and complete a task within parameters.
Rapid Modeling
This project was more of a unit of learning and developing skills than an actual project. We learned how to create simplistic structures in a very short amount of time using the dimensions of an Inventor Drawing. We were not allowed to use any kind of ruler or anything that can measure dimensions. We had to use items we found around the classroom in order to create accurate dimensions. We used cardboard to create the structures. I used an Xacto knife, a hot glue gun, a pencil, and a piece of graph paper to create my Rapid Models. The graph paper helped me with the dimensions. Four boxes on the paper is equivalent to one inch.
At first, we all simply ran straight into building the models and ended up taking up way too much time. The trim down on the time we were given a few techniques to follow. The main advice being: Complete one step at a time. Count out and write down all of the pieces you need. Mark out all the dimensions and cut lines of the pieces. Cut out all of the pieces. Glue all of the pieces together. The gluing technique was diferent from what we were used to. We were taught to weld two pieces together using hot glue. Drop little dots of glue along the edges of the pieces where they will be attached. Draw a line of hot glue on the inseam of the two pieces to create the weld. This creates a clean structure. My fastest time was during the Midterm where we were tested on these skills at 18 minutes to create a large pyramidal structure made out of 6x6 inch squares.
Egg Cart
This project focused on creating a device that would be attached to one of the small carts we had in the classroom. A raw egg was placed inside of our devices. The devices needed to be able to be easily attached and taken off of the carts. The cart was then, with the device and the raw egg, made to roll down a steep incline, a table on its side, and smash into the wall. The device had to save the egg from breaking. The catch was that each material costed "money" and we only had a budget of $12.00. The group with the smallest, cheapest device that successfully saved the egg would win.
My group of myself and Sonny came up with the idea for Springey Boy 2000. It was a wedge design to hold the egg with a seatbelt to keep the egg inside. A spring was attached to the front of the device as a crumple zone. We then recorded the device in action as it was tested and then the real test.
The entire design and building process can be found here: Egg Cart Device Engineering Journal
The Egg Cart Device Tests can be found at the following sites:
Egg Catcher
Like the Egg Cart project, this project focused on flexing our engineering muscles when trying to save an egg from breaking. Unlike the other project, we now had to save an egg from breaking when it is dropped from the top of the bleachers instead of from the impact of a cart crash. There is no restriction on materials, but the catcher had to be to fit within a 10x10 inches box. We could use anything available to us in the classroom, including furniture foam and polyfill.
My group, made up of once again myself and Sonny, came up with the idea for STEVE (which is what we called our Egg Catcher). STEVE was a cardboard bowl lined in furniture foam. The bottom of the catcher was filled with polyfill, but only a small amount. Two pieces of pre-cut pre-stressed paper was taped over the top of STEVE for a crumple zone and to slow down the descent of the egg. The egg survived all of our test drops from the field hockey small bleachers and the large bleachers by the football field, but the paper had to be replaced each time.
The entire building and design process can be found here: Egg Catcher Engineering Journal