Engineering students construct real-life sorting mechanisms

By LYNETTE SOWELL

Cove Leader-Press

Barbara Considine teaches principles of engineering at Copperas Cove High School, with the course made up of 9-12th grade students. This year’s class is predominantly made up of sophomores and this year has offered the students to make some creative designs with real-world applications. For a small group project they’ve been working on since just after spring break, students performed demonstrations of their final projects on Tuesday. “They study everything from mechanical to electrical engineering, as well as liquid flow,” said Considine. This particular project focused on flow, but for marbles. The students use a computer-run program to get the motors to work in their design. Sensors, also connected to a computer, will “read” what type of material the marble is made of and the students must design and construct by different means a contraption that sorts them. Using Vex equipment, similar to old fashioned Erector sets, the students can bend, cut, put together the metal. For certain parts they needed for their project but weren’t available, students had the chance to use the AutoCAD software and a 3D printer to create the parts. Marbles to be sorted included marbles made of wood, clear glass, dark glass, plastic, aluminum and steel. Students didn’t fashion a mechanism that sorted all six materials, but sophomores Jacob Snider and Richard Harrison said their group has had success with their design which can sort clear glass, dark glass, aluminum and steel marbles into separate containers. There are still some glitches as the students work. The main challenge has been the flashlight reading the marble the right way, Snider and Harrison said. The light sensor reading the glass marble as clear will assign it a number to the program. If the number is less than 30, the spinner will turn the marble counterclockwise and deliver it into the appropriate chute, where it will be channeled into a small plastic container. A dark glass marble will be assigned a number greater than 50, and the spinner will turn it clockwise and deliver it to another chute and put it into a different container. Their team spent two weeks on their prototype before the final version that works. “I made a couple of rough drafts,” said Harrison. They ended up constructing a design which sorted glass marbles, both transparent and dark glass. One hiccup they weren’t able to overcome was getting the program to distinguish between wood and aluminum marbles. “Their size, weight, etc. are pretty much the same,” said Harrison. With aluminum and steel, however, the team was able to tweak their design to weigh the metal marbles, and if light enough, would tip into the aluminum container, and if heavier, would roll into the  teel container. Systems like this one designed by the student groups can be used for storage systems, such as manufacturing plants which mass produce items. Harrison said the project was really fun, but it took a lot of work. “I mainly focused on building,” he added. “I’ve always liked to build things, and when this project came along, it gave me the perfect opportunity to do that.” Snider’s focus was on the design aspects of the project. In fact, he looks ahead to a future where he can put his computer programming skills to use. “This was right up my alley,” Snider said. Harrison said he doesn’t see himself having a future engineering career, but instead is hoping to become a spinal surgeon. This project showed him the importance of being precise, something that he said will carry over to his future career.