ES51 TURF WARS
Jan 2018 - May 2018
After a rough start and multiple rounds of orb-dumping, our team was able to take 2nd place in the competition. In addition, our robot was chosen to be featured in Harvard's Engineering Labs as a demonstration of Harvard's great engineering!
Our team's robot
SolidWorks sketch of robot.
SEAL Team 6 and Dr. Nathan Taylor (course instructor)
What is Turf Wars?
As a way to apply what students have learned in class, Harvard's Introduction to Computer Aided Machine Design (ES51) course hosts "Turf Wars." In this competition, teams composed of 3-5 students work to design and manufacture robots from scratch to compete the specific challenge.
During the Spring 2018 semester, our challenge was to design a robot that could transport orbs (balls) to the opponent's side without crossing the boundary. With my teammates Ethan Seder, Nathan Le, Can "Jon" Keles, and Tom McCarthy, we as SEAL Team 6 took on this challenge.
My Role
As someone who wanted to learn the skills of an engineer and support the team, I found myself working on various parts of the project:
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Developed a Google Sheets calculator that solved incline and lift-mechanism equations. This enabled us to experiment and quickly see the force produced made by small parameter changes.
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Designed and created the wheels of the robot using SolidWorks to design the wheel mold, CNC milling to create the wheel mold, and silicone molding to manufacture the wheels.
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Used the lathe in the labs to manufacture the various shafts and axles used in our robot.
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Organized teams work and meeting notes using Google Drive and GrabCAD.