Freshmen from three sections of Introduction to Engineering Design displayed their semester projects at a public forum held in December in the new Compton Science Center. Fall 2003 projects included catapults, a baseball launching machine, a ping pong ball gathering machine, human-powered pumps, and solar-powered heaters and coolers.

Students Matt Kopac and Joshua Steele decided to create a ping pong ball gathering device that would be able to pick up balls from the floor and deposit them into a storage area. Their goal was to pick up 10 ping pong balls in no more than five minutes. The students were given a number of constraints, including the requirement that the project must not weigh more than 50 pounds, and it must be mobile and free moving without physical human contact. The power source had to be supplied from DC volts and self-contained on the vehicle.

After testing the vehicle for the first time, the students discovered a serious flaw. According to Kopac, “Our single 12 volt motor was not suitable to power both the brush assembly and the conveyor belt. Our solution was to add a second motor specifically for the conveyor operation, as well as adding a gear box from the engineering lab. The gear box provided the torque needed to power the brush assembly.”

After improving their design, the students encountered yet another flaw in test two, with the pipe cleaners used in the brush assembly bending and not providing enough strength to move the balls to the conveyor belt. The students then replaced the pipe cleaners with 3/8 inch plastic tubing which was staggered on the brushes, successfully providing the clearance and strength needed to move the balls. The project proved to be a success and their device was fully operational.

Students in Oguz Soysal’s section of the course spent their semester designing and building solar-powered coolers and heaters. Freshmen Randy Oates, John Tabor, Tim Smith, and Bob Taylor were assigned the task of developing a cooling device that would cool one gallon of water at least 15 degrees per day. The students selected a design that utilized a thermo-electric panel due to its practicality, low cost, and adaptability. According to Oates, the team’s final design was functional but could have benefited from some improvements. “A better insulated container would have reduced energy loss. A
larger battery would have allowed us to store more potential energy, and a bigger container would have allowed more water to be cooled for instant use,” he said. Oates noted that once modified, his team’s product would be ideal for use on camping trips, at golf courses, and sporting events.

Back to:
Newsletter menu