 | Nick Bernardo (center), manager of the Engineering Student Machine Shop, demonstrates the use of a computer-controlled milling machine for (from left) Jonathan Hartman '09, Elysa Chao '09 and James Craig '08 and other students in MENG 185. The machine is one of the tools the students used to prepare their machines for the "Yale Robot Wars" competition. |
Students in the "Mechanical Design" course (MENG 185) will put the machines they've built during the past semester to the test in the annual "Yale Robot Wars" game on Friday, May 4, at 4 p.m. in Davies Auditorium, Becton Engineering and Applied Science Center, 15 Prospect St.
The event is free and open to the public.
Each year, students in the introductory-level class are asked to build a robot that can perform a specific task. This year's challenge revolved around transporting oil (simulated oil, in this case -- the organizers offer assurances that "no oil will be harmed during the course of the game"). The robots will have to open a valve to draw oil from a tank, transport it across the gameboard and empty it into another tank. Students earn "money" by delivering oil and are fined for spilling it.
David LaVan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and the host of the evening, is one of the instructors for MENG 185. The course, he says, "introduces many of the topics of mechanical engineering and forces the students to make decisions based on their understanding of machines and physical systems."
He adds: "Engineering design forces students to analyze the data and knowledge they have, identify what is missing, and synthesize that knowledge into appropriate decisions. In this sense, engineering design is one of the few times when students are forced to predict the future: How will a product be used? How will it be abused? What stresses will it see? How long will its life be? When will it fail? What are the secondary effects of failure?"
By building a machine for the competition, he notes, students must put into practice the fundamentals of engineering design: establishing a concept, testing the key features and evaluating the prototype to refine the design. "The emphasis," notes LaVan, "is on reducing the problem to solvable parts, demonstrating solutions to reduced aspects of problems and extrapolating to a functional design."
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