WYSE: Mechanical Enginnering Day 4
Today, we started the day continuing work on our 3D Printer Arm Lifter. We split our four person group into code gang (Ryan & Mateo) and build gang (Diego & Jackson).
We worked on the code that would allow the stepper motor to spin forward and backwards in consistent 360-degree movements, allowing for precision when we apply it in the 3D Printer.
The build gang used CAD to create a piece that used set screws to align the motor and screw for our 3D Printer.
This afternoon, we went out on field trips to two companies; one a startup, Psyonics, and one a large company, Caterpillar (CAT construction company).
First, we went to the Caterpillar Innovation Center. They showed us the structure of the company, how employees are able to pursue fields they desire in the company, and the loop of creating machines as good as they can for consumers and also gather data from those machines to see how people use them in ways they don’t expect, and in what areas the machines fail, so they can learn where to improve them. Data Analysis, Statistics, Computer Science, and Research are very important here to optimize product and process designs, as well as efficiency. It also works with materials processing, manufacturing processing, and structural analysis.
Also at CAT, we applied this knowledge we learned on a small engineering project of building a mousetrap car that could go the furthest distance while carrying the most weight. The issue is that there are always tradeoffs in engineering; for a further distance, you must let go of weight, and vice versa, because momentum (driving force) = mass * velocity.
They also shared an interesting story of how the name Caterpillar came to be; one day, when a news reporter saw someone using a vehicle with conveyor belt wheels and said it looked like a Caterpillar, hence the name.
Next, we went to Psyonics. The CEO was the “dopest guy”, he had many degrees but decided to pursue his passion of creating prosthetics, as he was inspired by past experiences with people in need of arms.
It was a great opportunity, getting to learn about not only the engineering, understanding the Machine Learning through motions of muscles touching the prosthetics and how signals could be passed through finger sensors to the nervous system, but also getting to see how a startup is created, managed, and how passionately they work, even when we come in to visit. They say that when choosing who to work for the company, if they work more on their own on projects it shows their overall dedication to both improving and solving problems along with a passion for computer science. They are planning on releasing their first batch of commercial prosthetic arms later this year, stating that their prosthetic arms are by far the cheapest on the market, and created with the cheapest materials. Also, one of my friends is getting in contact to help their friend who has been looking for prosthetic arms.
(More Audio Information Coming Later)
It was a nice contrast to travel out and see both a big firm and a small startup, and see the difference in how enginners in those repsective companies work.
For our afternoon activity, I went to my first escape room, Lab Escape. It’s the world’s only science-based escape room, and one of the physics professors in UIUC runs the actual escape room, so we apply our understanding of science and physics to escape from the room. The story varied between escape rooms we participated in, for example the group before us had to save the professor from an experiment gone wrong, but our story had some very low, understandable stakes; rather than escaping from the room, we had to help find the professor’s password within 45 minutes and submit an earning report online before time ran out. We were interns in her lab, and our goal was to get our monthly payment in time! Although I cannot post any pictures from inside of the escape room due to spoiling answers…
We were able to escape from the room! Our team name is “Proud Moms”, named after Alex, the counselor who helped bring us to the escape room and stuck with us to give some suggestions.
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