Now that all the fast motion teams (Baja, HPVC, FSAE, AAVG, etc.) have pretty much wrapped up their competitions, the team whose work might actually replace the human operator in future vehicles is taking the field this weekend in suburban Detroit. S&T is fielding two robotics teams in the annual IGVC competition at Oakland University, in the shadow of Chrysler's world headquarters. One group is the established S&T Robotics Team, and the other is a small new group (only three students) from the Interdisciplinary Engineering Department.
In this event the teams design and build autonomous robots that can haul a 20-lb payload down a narrow path, around obstacles, while surmounting varying terrain challenges, and all against a time limit. As with many other design events, there are written reports to submit, oral presentations to give, and qualifying tests of the machines to determine if the free-willed(?) vehicles can actually move as advertised.

Since yesterday some 40 teams from the U.S., Canada and Japan have filled a nearly 100-yard-long party tent with all manner of computers, mechanical assemblies, test equipment, and perhaps most item important of all, snack food to best fuel all that brain activity.

While writing code seems to be the primary order of the day as teams struggle to work out the last of the bugs, and test, test, and test yet again, there are still a lot of mundane things to do, such as sewing a restraint strap for the required payload.
The Miners' IDE team with its simple, but rugged wheelchair-based design "triMAXion" was one of the earliest qualifiers, the Robotics Competition Team's more complex and ambitious "Aluminator" is expected to reach that hurdle today. While the event won't exactly feature wheel-to-wheel racing that Miner fans have come to expect, we'll have more news as the event goes on, along with some of our, ahem, commentary on various issues. In the meantime we'll post a few more images to help you get the flavor of the event

As we mentioned earlier, the goal is to avoid obstacles..............

In the event that your machine can't detect a snow fence, sometimes you have to just drag it back out.

Posted at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It doesn't get any better than this..................

We just got great words from Rolla businessman Kent Bagnall, a S&T alum, strong supporter of the S&T design teams, and lucky husband of former Miner Alumni Association Director Lindsey Bagnall. Kent is in Brazil with group of Missouri citizens and business people on a Rotary Group Study Exchange, visiting a variety of businesses, educational institutions, government agencies, etc. Kent wants our supporters to know how well our programs are known around the world.

He goes on to say:

"We visited a local university here in Campos today. It has a variety of focuses, one of which is technology. They have a eco-house with solar and wind power. When one of the professors found out we were from Missouri, he said that there is a really good engineering school in Rolla, Missouri".

While we have long (for 138 years, actually) known that S&T is a great school, the best part of the story is that the people from Rolla were in the other room, and the professor made his comments directly to the Mizzou guy!

Did you know that S&T grads give far more financial support to their alma mater that Mizzou grads do?
Not just per-capita, but on a TOTAL basis. Not bad for a campus that is maybe 1/4 the size of the Columbia branch campus.

That speaks volumes about the value of a S&T diploma, the Miners' success in the business world, their loyalty to the school that gave them their technological foundation, and the obvious fact that our alums know better than anyone else the importance of strengthening our educational programs.

Posted at 09:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the spring of each year S&T's design teams head out to various engineering events. Hardly a competition goes by that some school's team doesn't get upset at the judges for some perceived slight.
Interpretation of the rules, "curve balls' thrown at teams just for the (apparent) fun of it, or simple differences of opinion can make the events, uh, interesting.

While we post some photos of the judges at work, we thought we'd pass along an observation or two.

At the steel bridge nationals it became apparent that there is more to event judging than meets the eye. You see, judges don't volunteer for these events purely out of the goodness of their hearts (though many do), to get out of the office for a few days (maybe some do), or to get those cool orange polo shirts (probably none do). The also want ACCESS to their future employees.

They don't necessarily size up individuals, but they DO figure out which teams work together cohesively, because they want students who can contribute immediately in a TEAM environment that is the modern workplace.
For example, we were approached by a judge who owns a Florida firm that designs and builds (duh!) bridges, and he passed on the following:
1. His firm strongly prefers to hire students from the Midwest. In fact, he said (and we aren't making this up) they prefer the third child of a poor Midwest farmer, because:
a. They are used to doing without, so they don't expect much
b. They can get the job done with what little assets are on hand
c. When they grow up there isn't room on the farm 'cause of the older kids, so.....
d. They often head to Missouri S&T where they join a design team and become fabulous engineering students, 'cause they not only know HOW things work, but WHY things work!

What happens next? His engineering firm snaps 'em up because (insert drum roll here....) S&T gals and guys KNOW how to work and contribute from the first day on the job.

When we pressed him for more info, he commented that the big-name New England and Ivy League schools graduate very smart engineers, who, when presented with a real-world problem, don't quite know where to start because that haven't had experience on top design teams like S&T's world-beaters (he did allow that Princeton might be an exception to that rule, but that school is in New Jersey anyway, not New England). He also hinted that some well-known west coast schools whose location suggests that they might have a surfing major, "just don't get it".
In fact, this firm's prez wants to visit the Miner's campus to make presentations about the challenges of designing and building bridges in the real world, as well as to strengthen his firm's connection to S&T's best. Trust us, we'll be talking to this gentleman for some time to come.

Hmmmm, wonder if he'd be interested in funding the Steel Bridge Team's next competition trip..........?

Posted at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Missouri S&T Steel Bridge Team's long-awaited return to the national finals went well for the group, as they placed in the top third ranking in the presentation category. Now this is not the usual verbal powerpoint 'presentation' so beloved by all. Instead "presentation" (or display) is how cool your bridge looks.

S&T's fabulous gold and silver color scheme harkens back to the Miners' school colors of Au and Ag on the Table of Elements.

Of course silver and gold are dug from the ground, and since that's what miners do, it was a natural choice that earned them 12th place out of 42. They did pay something of a price for their overall design in the other categories, such as as stiffness, weight, economy and speed of assembly, most of which ranked in the mid-30th places. S&T's final ranking was 34th overall against pretty strong competition, and that was not bad after a multi-year absence from the nationals.

Now, with 42 teams on hand there are going to be many different design approaches in each of the categories. Other teams pay careful attention to color, while others............................................

.......................................................apparently do not.

See you next year when the our own "Doozers" return to the stage. Fraggle Rock, remember?

Posted at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

S&T's crew of three women and five guys sailed through the Steel Bridge Conference national finals in Gainesville Florida this afternoon. Five university teams go shoulder-to-shoulder simultaneously on the home court of the '06 and '07 national basketball champs.

Each group has to lay out all the bridge components on opposite ends of the "obstacle" over which each structure is to be as quickly and safely as possible.

Drop a bolt or step outside the red lines and you'll "earn" penalty points. But mostly, speed is critical.

Weeks of rehearsal since the regional event allowed S&T to knock nearly three minutes off their assembly time, while other participating teams ring the arena's upper decks breaking into applause when assembly teams make an impressive showing. And they did for the Miners.

Bolts get pounded into fittings and as each component is assembled the Miners yell "Stable" and move to the next assembly.

After that each group of river crossers carry the bridge to the deflection testing area. You don't need sophisticated scales to tell which bridges are the heaviest, because you can see it in the faces of the students lucky enough to carry the bridges across the hardcourt.

Once they get their wind back they use weights and pulleys to test lateral deflection, then load big hunks of 50 lb angle iron evenly on the bridge decks.
Your bridge doesn't collapse? Good! Because now you (or more accurately the judges) can measure the vertical deflection (that's SAGGING for you liberal arts guys out there serving fries) of each structure.

The last task is to haul your team's product to the scales to see just how much it actually weighs.
To give you an idea of how important weight is, there were reports of a team that had used non-steel (aluminum?) bolts in a few places, and were found out by magnetic sweeps. We imagine the shear strength of such bolts would approximate that of undercooked pasta. Anyway, we didn't see (or hear) any bridges collapse.

Team rankings are kept secret until tonight's awards dinner, and we'll report on that as soon as the team wander back to the hotel pool.

Posted at 07:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After a long year of study at one of the nation's top technology-based schools, you can't blame the Miners for blasting off to the Florida beaches for some serious R&R. Instead of pushing sand through their toes S&T's Steel Bridge Team will be wearing hard hats and twirling wrenches at the National Student Steel Bridge competition in Gainesville, Florida this weekend.

The Miners qualified for the national finals with a strong showing at the Arkansas regionals last month, and have been rehearsing for the big show ever since. Each of the 42 teams crowding the O'Connell Center's indoor track had set up their bridges today for the aesthetics judging. What looked like a giant game of pick-up-sticks was quickly transformed into a lace-like series of steel cobwebs.

After that everyone spent their time checking on their competitors' design skills and workmanship, and swapping ideas while the judges skulked about. While today was just the display element and aesthetic judging (thus no hard hats), tomorrow each team has to assemble their bridge over a fictitious water barrier within a very specific time limit and points are deducted for dropped parts or tools or any unsafe act. Then the team moves the assembled bridge to a second area and must load 2,500lbs of steel onto the bridge deck to prove that their projects are not just Ozarks-style lawn ornaments and can actually do the job of a bridge.

The rules allow just a smidgen (that's an engineering term) of deflection when fully loaded or your bridge is out of the running. Should the bridge, uh, collapse, the Florida Gators (the university, not the big lizard) claim to have a very aggressive steel recycling program that should save the unlucky team the cost of shipping the wreckage back home.

So far there are no scores posted on the aesthetic event, but the best info we have is rumored to come from a student (looking over a judge's shoulder) who says S&T has earned a high mark of 8.2 out of 10.
A little, eh, unofficial, but you read it here first.

And what is a little friendly competition without a few practical jokes? We hear that Georgia Tech has been plagued with "missing" bolts, and someone has swiped an "E" from their hard hat. That brings up the old saying that you can't spell "geek" without a "Double E".

Posted at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Missouri S&T's Formula SAE Team is on the way home from the world championship of collegiate racing, and they feel pretty good about their technical resurgence. Their consistent performance throughout the engineering, static and dynamic events landed them 8th place overall among over 100 top-flight international teams that converged on the Michigan International Speedway this past week, and this is the 3rd time in the past five years that S&T has placed on the top-ten team list at the world finals, one of perhaps only five teams to claim that honor. And that handful of great teams was definitely there this week.

As mentioned, S&T rallied to win the autocross, but the endurance race is the top event. The fastest cars are grouped together and fly wheel-to-wheel through a 22km course designed to prove the cars are, in fact, proven.
These events are not just about punching the accelerator and holding on. Each team goes through a grueling round of tech and safety inspections before and even AFTER each race under the watchful (and sometimes changing) eyes of SAE professionals. The students must develop strategy, i.e., which driver starts each race, choosing tires according to the air temperature or track conditions, how best to out-run other top-tier teams, or any other variable that arises just as unexpected problems might arise in industry design efforts.

Team Leader Brad Leuther (in the cool glasses) often starts each day with team briefings to confirm that everyone fully understands the team's strategy, and the Miners' new racing trailer serves as a fantastic meeting place to do just that.

Anyone who doesn't own a computer or TV and listens only to opera recordings has to know that auto racing is a HUGE industry, from Georgia dirt tracks to the Dubai Grand Prix, and many students would love to be part of that action. SAE staffers tell us that professional racing teams actively recruit from various SAE college teams, and it is virtually a requirement that job-seekers have SAE design team experience if they hope to get so much as a first look. Teamwork and complex project management is what the "real" world does, and that's exactly what these design teams do. Off-hand we know of a S&T solar car alum who is now helping design Corvettes, and a Miner FSAE grad who is working on traction control systems on the hot new Cadillac cars.

Speaking of teamwork, here's an example..............when S&T blew out a stator and pulled off the autocross track for repairs, our FSAE friends from the University of Kansas jumped in to help get the Miners back on the track. That helped #92 rally to win the race, and you don't get better friends (or future co-workers) than that.

Posted at 06:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A victory in the autocross race and solid performances in the endurance competition helped propel Missouri S&T's Formula SAE Team to its third top-10 finish in five years in the annual Formula SAE international competition, held May 15-17 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich.

The Missouri S&T team and its Indy-style miniature race car finished eighth among a field of 104 contestants from 15 countries. The University of Western Australia won the overall event.

The Missouri S&T team achieved its highest finish in the event since 2004, when the team finished fourth out of some 120 competitors. The team finished ninth in the 2005 event. After failing to complete the 2006 and 2007 races, the team's 2008 ranking gives the team three top-10 finishes over the past five years. Earlier this year, Missouri S&T finished second out of 40 teams in a similar race in Virginia.

The Formula SAE events, sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers, are designed to showcase the engineering skills of university students. Each year for the Formula SAE competitions, the teams design and manufacture a new car. At each event, teams were judged in several performance categories, including acceleration tests that resemble drag races, and an endurance test. Judges also evaluate cost and design.

In addition to winning the autocross competition with a time of 46.9 seconds, Missouri S&T finished second in a design paper presentation, and finished in the top 10 in the endurance and cost categories.

"Every year since I've been advisor, which began in 2001, the competitiveness has become more and more intense," says team advisor Dr. Hank Pernicka, associate professor of aerospace engineering at Missouri S&T. "For us to win autocross and to be so competitive in the other events speaks well of this team and our program. I'm very proud of this team's accomplishments in such a highly competitive annual event."

Some 40 S&T students were involved in every stage of creating the racing machine, from computer modeling to welding the car’s steel frame. Each year, the students design and manufacture a new car for various competitions. Twenty-three students traveled to Michigan for the event.

According to one of the team leaders, Brad Leuther, Missouri S&T was behind schedule last year and didn’t finish its car until it arrived at the first event site. This year, the car was finished early and the team has been testing it for several months.

Leuther says the 2008 car, which weighs 450 pounds and has a top speed of about 85 mph, is faster and easier to work on than the 2007 model. Last year’s car blew an engine due to oil starvation, a big problem that has been addressed by the new crew.

“It’s so easy to over-engineer stuff,” says Leuther, a senior in mechanical engineering from Fulton, Mo. “We evaluated everything this year and tried not to make it too complicated.”

The final stop on the circuit of this year's Formula SAE competitions is Formula SAE West, scheduled for June 25-28 in Fontana, Calif. Missouri S&T is among the 82 universities registered for that competition.

Posted at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Missouri S&T student and Formula SAE team member Omar Al-Amody recently posted this clip about the teams speedy car.

Here's a clip from SpeedTV's coverage of the April FSAE race in Virginia. Missouri S&T finished second in that event.

Stay tuned for more video from the race.

Posted at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Missouri S&T's Formula SAE team is unofficially in the top five of some 130 racers going into today's final event, the endurance competition. The 22-kilometer endurance course will test the mettle of all FSAE competitors, but Missouri S&T's Corey Blue thinks the team has a good chance to be in the top three when the smoke clears.

Interview with Corey Blue, Missouri S&T FSAE team member

Posted at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently S&T's Formula SAE team's 2nd placed finish at Virginia International Speedway a few weeks ago was just the warm-up for the grand-daddy of FSAE racing, this weekend's field of 100+ international teams tearing up the asphalt in the backyard of the Big 3 automakers. The team earned top-ten placement in design (just four points behind #1) and cost judging Thursday, and despite having the biggest car at the event, landed very good marks in acceleration (12th) and skid pad (14th) Friday. Lunch break was a great chance to do last-minute checks and repairs, using

every engineer's favorite roll-based grey composite material (duct-tape for all you liberal arts grads) prior to the autocross race, the first of the two big races which usually decide the FSAE world champs.
Neil Schreiber started his two autocross runs with blistering runs just over 50 seconds each. As the track warmed up, however, the powerhouse teams from Texas*, Germany and Austria (foreign countries all, but the Europeans speak excellent English) gradually began to post times 3 to 4 seconds faster, dropping S&T down in the ranks. Racing was SO close that only 14/1000 of a second separated the top 2 cars in the mid 47-second range. After a team's oil spill closed the track and cooled the course down, it looked kinda grim for a S&T podium finish, but Richard Colfax, in his
last race before going to work for Goodyear, strapped himself in the car and BLEW THE DOORS OFF the leaders by more than half a second, notching the only sub-47-second mark of the day! That launched the Miners into sole possession of first place and suddenly everyone knew who Missouri S&T was. But before Richard could take his second run mechanical troubles forced the girls and guys back to the paddock for repairs and it looked like they were done for the day. Meanwhile the crew had to sweat out other teams' efforts to surpass the new mark, but at the last minute they hustled the car back to the pit area and were allowed another run.

Richard managed to knock another 2/10ths of a second off his first score, pretty much locking up the event for tomorrow's 22-kilometer endurance race that may well determine the champion. That puts S&T in the pole position, but racing will be exciting because rain and wind is in the forecast, and we don't see many rain tires in the paddock. Stay tuned.........

* Look; if you want to call your place a "whole other country", don't gripe at us.

Alas, let us not forget our less-fortunate friends from a small school about 90 miles north of Rolla. They, too, shall have their 15 seconds of fame.............................

Posted at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Update, Saturday morning, May 17, 2008: The team's time of 46.662 was invalidated as the car hit a cone during the run. This resulted in a two-second penalty. But Missouri S&T's earlier run of 46.9 seconds was fast enough to put the team in first place in the autocross competition, 4/10ths of a second ahead of the next-fastest vehicle.

The results are not yet official, but it looks like Missouri S&T's Formula SAE team took first place in the autocross event of the international FSAE competition under way at Michigan International Speedway. Missouri S&T's racer posted a time of 46.662 seconds in the autocross event. That's at least three-tenths of a second faster than the next fastest formula car.

Here's a brief interview with S&T driver Richard Colfax, who drove the car to the top finish today. Colfax is a veteran of six FSAE competitions and graduates tomorrow with a degree in aerospace engineering. (He's also an alum, holding bachelor's and master's degrees in metallurgical engineering from Missouri S&T.)

Posted at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Formula SAE competition is under way here in Michigan. Missouri S&T drivers performed well in this morning's driving events -- skid pad and acceleration. They are now getting the car ready for the afternoon's activities. More news later. In the meantime, here are some sounds from the speedway.

Interview with Brad Leuther, leader of the Missouri S&T team

Interview with John Kiblinger, one of the Missouri S&T drivers

Sounds from the speedway

Posted at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Missouri S&T's Formula SAE Team is on their way to Michigan for the annual Formula SAE Competition this weekend at Michigan International Speedway. Team members hope to improve on their second-place finish in last month's event in Virginia.

Follow all the the action from this blog, or if you're a fan of Twitter, sign up to follow this event and other Missouri S&T activities from the Missouri S&T Twitter page.

We'll also post audio updates from time to time on the brand new Missouri S&T Utterz site.

Posted at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

S&T's baja-style racers weren't brought down by a nail (broken flywheel key) or a shoe (shattered A-arm), but on a sad Derby Day in neighboring Kentucky their horse couldn't overcome a metaphorically broken ankle and had to be put down. The bearing basket on a CV joint broke in half and even then the Miners were set to attempt emergency repairs until they realized that all the ball bearings were probably ground deep into the mud on the Tennessee Tech campus.

At that point there was little to do but pack it in, watch the remaining race, and rest up. They'll return to campus, regroup, and get back to working on their other baja-style buggy for the SAE event near Peoria IL in just two weeks. That one is primarily a rock-crawler so the winner will probably be the most rugged rather than then most nimble. Stay tuned!

BTW, going into the static and dynamic events S&T's mud-bugs made a good showing in the engineering report and design evaluation, right behind West Point and Johns Hopkins (this writer's ROTC alma mater) and ahead of Cornell and Embry Riddle. When you consider what the tab is for a Hopkins or Cornell education I'd say that is pretty good standings.

Posted at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, for all of yesterday's drama the real Baja action is the four-hour (!) endurance race. In a mass start eerily similar to quitting time on the S&T campus (except baja drivers wear helmets), round after round of cars charge into a lake. Wouldn't be so confusing except that dirt cars don't steer very well in water (or is that just a K-State driver getting chewed out for lousy driving?).

Our Miners developed a strategy to avoid this mess; they simply waited until the first wave (ouch!) either collided and withdrew, or simply sunk as one did, and then waded (sorry!) into the fray. Kept their car nice and clean, too!

Did we mention LADIES?!?! There were at least TWO all-female teams that invaded this bastion of mud and testosterone. Those teams would have had no trouble borrowing tools or materials, but as women they probably wouldn't have forgotten anything in the first place. We also hear that the gender language issue (cuss/no cuss) issue seemed to disappear.

And what would a woman's car be without a little decorating touch?

Posted at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

........for want of a shoe, a horse was lost, then the soldier, regiment, battle, king and kingdom were all lost, or so goes the old saw from centuries past.

That was nearly the case for S&T's Baja this weekend. After the requisite judge-mandated modifications, they managed to re-enter tech inspection, gain approval, and head for the skid pad arena, but the engine wouldn't re-start.

No amount of hauling on the starter rope succeeded, so they pushed the beast to Briggs' support center where they found the flywheel key had sheared. Easy repair, except nobody had one, so they resorted to every engineer's stand-by equation; extreme force, to tighten the flywheel. Worked like a charm and after a rainstorm delay they handled skid pad and acceleration with aplomb.
The next task, maneuverability, was not so easy as their right A-arm tore off at the bottom of a steep drop.

Such was the end, albeit temporary, of qualifying for the Miners that day.

Time to borrow a TIG welder and let Wes Thomas do his aluminum magic. After what was probably a sleep-free night for the five-man crew both A-arms were repaired and strengthened and un-named car was ready for the all-important 4-hour endurance race. Did we mention there was a slight water hazard on the course?

Posted at 09:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We'll let our gentle readers form their own opinions on this issue, but here is some background that is probably common to all major design competitions:
Groups of fiercely dedicated students at universities all over the world spend the last who-knows-how-many months designing and building the car/plane/bike/boat that they think is the most brilliant masterpiece ever created. They carefully study the rules and regulations and find that there is some room for interpretation, so they do what comes naturally; they interpret in a manner that is SURE to be the way the judges would approve. No way would their Dew-induced trance allow them to mis-interpret the situation!
Now, fast-forward to each event's Tech Inspection................professional engineers (small p.e.) volunteer their time to work these events, and with the benefit of years in the business world read the same rules and interpret them THEIR way. If they don't agree with the greenhorn engineers, guess who typically wins?

That's why perhaps only 1/3rd of the teams pass Tech Inspection on the first try. For all the carping and kvetching that follows, the students typically resort to all manner of quick-fixes or borrowed parts, often well into the night, in order to qualify for the big races. While it doesn't make them happy, rejection at least lets them focus on the task at hand, because NOBODY wants to go home to tell their advisors they didn't at least get their feet wet (literally or figuratively).

Posted at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)