Mara visits CalTech and meets The Riveters – an all-female crew of engineers competing for high honors in a 3D printed tank battle!
Yearly, the Mechanical Engineering college students on the California Institute of Expertise in Pasadena are challenged to design, construct, and function a fleet of three robotic tanks that may efficiently navigate, management, and defend strategic base positions on a grass course. This yr marked the thirty third Annual Engineering Design Competitors. There have been six groups of 4, and nearly half of the contributors had been girls.
Mara was fortunate sufficient to run into The Riveters – an all-female crew of engineers sporting iconic Rosie the Riveter ribbons. The tanks they entered into the competitors had been two-thirds 3D printed masterpieces. The tanks had been all 3D printed in numerous colours to match an iconic feminine trio – The Powder Puff Women!
The Riveters!
They used 3D printing primarily for elements that weren’t load-bearing and that might be arduous to machine, just like the motor mounts. In addition they stored backup prints useful for on-site repairs in case of collisions on the course. They took full benefit of 3D printing for prototyping and testing their designs as they moved by means of a number of iterations as nicely.
College students fabricated their tanks utilizing the MAKEiT 3D printers within the Caltech machine store, or the Craftbots within the 3D printing lab, which will also be used for private initiatives.
One competitors tank in between battles.
Right here is how the competitors labored: The robots moved out autonomously through the first 40 seconds of the competitors. Then the rivals had been in a position to remotely management the robots to maneuver the next goals; traverse and steadiness on a 10-foot seesaw, climb an elevated four-foot platform and push to activate a big button to seize a strategic place. Whereas direct ramming assaults had been in opposition to the principles, you would shoot Nerf balls at different robots, and when you scored direct hits 3 times, the embattled robotic had to return to the beginning.
Most groups operated two tanks at a time, so if one took a spill, they may swap it out for one more one of their fleet.
The superior Tank Wars trophies!
The competitors featured robots with tank-treads or wheels for mobility, large shovels or scoops to launch Nerf balls, and all of the robots had been constructed fully from scratch – no manufactured elements had been allowed (apart from wiring!).
The design of the robots sometimes takes about six months – and it offers the groups invaluable expertise in what they’d come up in opposition to within the skilled engineering world. The iterative strategy of design, fabricate, check, redesign, fabricate and retest simulates typical business cycles. So despite the fact that the top result’s enjoyable and thrilling, the expertise transferring into the ‘real-world’ is invaluable.
The Riveters had been the undefeated champions of this competitors, due to technique, engineering, preparation, design, and creativity. They had been cautious to not over-design, and in reality, scrapped their first design fully. They designed their tanks to be dependable, and to resist the obstacles on the course and completed two weeks early, so that they had loads of time to observe – and get a superb evening’s sleep the evening earlier than.
All of the wonderful rivals for the 2018 Tank Wars Problem
Congratulations to The Riveters for a stellar efficiency – on Worldwide Girls’s Day, no much less! Even the mini trophies had been 3D printed on a LulzBot Taz 6. The massive trophy is a portion of an precise metal gear which shall be handed alongside to subsequent yr’s winners.
For extra details about the groups click on the hyperlink under.
http://www.mce.caltech.edu/occasions/me72
Are you utilizing 3D printing for an superior college mission? Please depart me a remark – I’d love to listen to about it.
I’m Mara and this has been your MatterHackers Minute. Go be superior!
