Students race autonomous vehicles for final project
Mechanical and industrial engineering students raced their mouse trap vehicles with autonomous braking systems for their ME 250 final projects this semester.
The team-based mechanical design project taught students how to design, build, and test a lightweight vehicle powered by mousetrap springs that needed to travel 3 to 6 meters to a lighted checkpoint. At the checkpoint, the vehicle was required to emit a signal – either audio or visual – while braking as quickly as possible.
“The inspiration is an automotive brake test, but we didn’t want the collision part,” Clinical Associate Professor Jamison Szwalek said. “Their vehicle must have a way to break or manage the power appropriately to stop closest to the checkpoint.”
The teams were made up of four students, and each student was given a mousetrap with two springs, which allowed them to use up to four mousetraps. Through testing, the students determined how many they needed to use. In addition to various hand and power tools, the students were encouraged to use 3D printing or laser cutting in their designs.
“I walked in not knowing anything about our computers or workshop. But through the four months that I’ve been here, I learned a lot about how to work with the team, how to design, and how to use tools,” first-year student Yordannos Nagash said.
“This is my favorite class that I’ve ever taken. It really breaks down engineering as a whole, step by step, from the very beginning to the very end. We did many projects, and they really show how you go from a concept to an actual device,” junior Fernanda Palomar added.
For the final test, the students measured the time it took the vehicle to pass the checkpoint and the distance from the checkpoint to the spot where the car finally stopped. In addition, the scoring was based on the cost to build the vehicle, its environmental impact, durability, and “wow factor.”
In addition to competing and challenging the students to think outside the box, the class equips them for the next step in their educational journey.
“This project definitely gets you prepared for bigger projects in engineering. The report part was huge because we learned how to communicate our findings and our process, and how to create mechanisms, fix them, and see how they’re working or how they’re not working,” sophomore Caitlin Bouris said.