iLEAD Academy
Principals of Engineering Projects
As part of our robotics section for Principals of Engineering we build a elevator that worked off buttons and would hold values and stop at certain floors based off the button inputs. We also built and coded a marble sorter that would sort the marbles based on material and color we used a combination of weight and light sensors to sort the marbles into separate bins. These projects were my first real start in the robotics field. I learned basic coding concepts that I took with me to the robotics class and eventually became certified in the language. Another big concept I took away from this project was the use of sensors and how they can be incorporated in industry machines. If I choose to go into robotics I will be working closely with sensors like these to complete robotic systems. For example a system like the marble sorter could be used in the future as recycling becomes a bigger industry.
In our civil engineering unit we were given the task of creating a bridge under a $150,000 budget that could hold the weight of a semi truck. We used bridge designer 2016, an interactive bridge building software, to design and test the bridge. We also did some of the truss calculations by hand as part of our civil engineering unit in Principals of Engineering. Up until this point I had been very interested in the field of civil engineering and planned on majoring in it. This unit helped me realize that civil engineering was more math focused and less hands on than I originally thought. After this project I focused more on the robotics side of engineering.
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Simple Machines
This was a rather simple vex project but I include it because of the important fundamentals it taught me. me built and calculated the effectiveness of the simple machines in the project. This taught me about the common building blocks for mechanical engineering. If I choose to pursue a career in this field I will use this knowledge to build on. I have also used these calculations in VEX Robotics to ensure the effectiveness of our robots. I also incorporated the design aspects into my future VEX builds.
Marble Sorter
Elevator Project
Bridge Design
As part of our robotics section for Principals of Engineering we build a elevator that worked off buttons and would hold values and stop at certain floors based off the button inputs. We also built and coded a marble sorter that would sort the marbles based on material and color we used a combination of weight and light sensors to sort the marbles into separate bins. These projects were my first real start in the robotics field. I learned basic coding concepts that I took with me to the robotics class and eventually became certified in the language. Another big concept I took away from this project was the use of sensors and how they can be incorporated in industry machines. If I choose to go into robotics I will be working closely with sensors like these to complete robotic systems. For example a system like the marble sorter could be used in the future as recycling becomes a bigger industry.