Integration of FIRST and PLTW

John Wise

Lee Smalley

Andy Newell

Project Lead the Way

Five engineering classes which teaches the fundamental ideas behind engineeringIts goal is to better prepare students for college curriculumIt gives students experience and knowledge in the field of engineering Students can earn college credit to RIT and USC for all the classes

Engineering Design and Development

In the final culminating course of the PLTW program: Students are given the challenge of solving an

engineering problem. Basically inventing or bettering a product or process

Our group used the robot’s tetra manipulator as our product to design

Our Place

With this new problem to be solved, we saw an opportunity to take on our own sub-team and design and develop the manipulator for the robot. Prior to the formation of our group, the team had elected to use a spear to lift and lower the tetra. We saw this solution to be simple but lacked consistency and durability.

Brainstorming

Servo-motor gripper

Grappling hook

Forked spear

Pneumatic claw devise

Hook with spring

Spear

Retractable Hooks

Suction device

Lead screw claw

Many more

We compiled a list of 46 ideas which could possibly be used in our lift-arm mechanism.

These included:

Five Main Ideas

Magnetic Fork

Spear Hook

Two Point Base Grabber

Lead Screw Claw with Guiding Shield

Weight Sensitive Spear Hook

Our Proposed Solution

We interviewed many engineers and students on the team and with their input we decided to design and construct the weight sensitive spear so that when the weight of the tetra was on the arm an end piece would flip up and keep the tetra from falling off. We then began to design by building and testing prototypes.

First Prototype

With our first prototype we discovered we were able to accomplish what we needed to do. It still needed a lot of work.

Redesign and Sketches

We rethought our design and came up with a new idea which would be smoother and more consistent.

Our Design

This new prototype worked exactly as we needed it to!

We Still had a Problem

Our arm must be able to fold inside the robot while still fitting to the robot’s size constraints.

We designed plates with a built in axle to allow the arm to fold up.

Testing The Manipulator

After we put the arm on the robot it was shipped to the University of Central Florida where it was ready for competition.

It performed excellently!

Match 5

Match 10

Match 18

Thank you for your time!