Moveable Bridge

Competition Day

When: Friday April, 29th, 4-7:30PM

Where: Berkshire Innovation Center

Students will present their poster to the judges prior to competition and then bring their design up for testing . There will be a combination of monetary prizes for the top scoring individuals.

**Food and drinks will be provided, if a student on the team has a dietary restriction please reach out to the email listed below.**

Sign up for the competition by informing your teacher or emailing us directly at STEM.Pittsfield@gd-ms.com

Office Hours

Live calls on April 4th and April 25th starting 6 PM, links to zoom call will be posted the day of the help session . Email help available through Jay.Kulpinski@gd-ms.com or Jay.Kulpinski@gmail.com

Materials Provided

• 2’x2’ square base for the model

• An Arduino computer board to implement the control logic

• Arduino power supply

• Six magnetic reed switch sensor boards to detect vehicles

• Four red/yellow/green LED traffic light modules to direct vehicle movement

• A servo motor for raising and lowering the bridge

• Connecting wires

• Magnets for the underside of the vehicles to allow detection

• Any other materials needed will be supplied by the team and are limited to a $50 budget.

Constraints & Requirements

• The model of the roadway, river, and bridge must meet the following constraints and requirements:

• The road is two lanes wide, one in each direction, and each lane is four inches wide.

• The river is eight inches wide, but only the center four inches are deep enough for boat traffic. This means that only one boat may pass at a time.

• The bridge should be one inch above the river to account for varying water levels due to weather and tides.

• The bridge should allow water vehicle with a height of five inches to pass through the center four inches of the river.

• There should be a traffic light for each direction on the roadway and the river.

• The roadway traffic lights should remain green until a waiting boat is detected, then change to yellow for five seconds before changing to red.

• When the roadway lights are red and the controller has detected that any vehicles that entered the bridge have left the other side, the bridge may be raised.

• When the bridge is fully raised, the traffic light for the waiting boat may change to green. (The opposing light should stay red as only one boat can pass the bridge at a time.)

• After 30 seconds of green, the boat's traffic light should go yellow for five seconds, and then red.

• When the controller detects that the boat has emerged on the other side, the bridge may be lowered.

• When the bridge is fully lowered, the roadway traffic lights can go green, allowing traffic to flow once again. The light should stay green for at least 30 seconds before allowing another boat to interrupt the traffic.

• The operation of the bridge will be tested with more than just your two vehicles, so controller logic should account for that.

• If the controller waits longer than 60 seconds for a land or water vehicle to clear the bridge, it should flash the red lights on all four traffic lights to indicate a problem and stay in that state until reset.

Your team will also supply two vehicles which can represent either a land vehicle or a water vehicle. Each vehicle should meet the following requirements:

• The width of the vehicle should be no more than three inches.

• The length of the vehicle should be no more than five inches.

• The height of the vehicle should be no more than five inches.

• The vehicle must have a magnet mounted on the center of its underside.

• The vehicle must have clearance to pass over a 1.5”x1.5”x0.2” sensor module.

• Vehicles will be moved by hand (i.e., not motorized) and are expected to drive in the proper lane and obey the indications on the traffic lights.

Assumptions

• You may assume that vehicles only go forward in the proper lane and won't back up once activating a sensor.

• You may assume only one boat will be waiting at a time so the single sensor on each side of the bridge can be used both for detecting a waiting boat and for detecting a boat that has completed passing through the bridge.

Presentation

The team will create a presentation using up to three sheets of poster board as needed. The presentation should include:

• Statement of the problem

• Schematic drawing(s) of the solution

• Description of controller logic (e.g., descriptive text, flow charts, and/or state transition diagrams)

• Materials list and budget

• Challenges encountered and how they were solved

• Any design limitations identified and possible solutions (e.g., additional sensors)

Calculation of Final Score

Teams will be scored based on meeting each of the stated requirements below.