CSU-Pueblo team tracks way to win
A tracked machine that dumps a payload of rice takes the top prize at a competition
in Arizona.
By PETER ROPER
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
What could be better for young mechanical engineering students than to build a machine
that ran over the competition at a regional engineering championship at the University of
Arizona?
That's what a team from Colorado State University-Pueblo did on April 8-9 when they
unleashed their 8-pound "Starch Stroller" - a motorized "device" that climbed three
steps, made a 90-degree turn, descended a step and then dumped its payload of rice into a
holding bin. Then it retraced its path five more times within the 10-minute contest.
"Most of the other machines in the competition couldn't climb the steps," explained
Mike Long, a civil engineering technology senior at CSU-Pueblo and a team member.
The 11-school competition included teams from CSU-Fort Collins, Utah State, Brigham
Young University and the University of Arizona. And winning the contest means the
CSU-Pueblo team of Long, Brandon Van Buskirk, Erik Andersen and Brandon Smith will go the
international finals in November at the Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in
Orlando, Fla.
Except for Long, all of the team members, plus volunteer helper Steve Santa, are
mechanical engineering technology students at the Pueblo university. They spent months
brainstorming and building their machine, which went through several incarnations before
the engineering students were happy with their design.
The contest was strictly controlled and the race course was clearly spelled out.
Machines would have to navigate the three steps (4 inches high), turn at the top step (a
12-inch square), drop down one step and then empty a payload of rice into a container.
Then return to the start to reload.
"We first considered using wheels but they weren't very reliable in going up the
stairs," Van Buskirk said. "So we switched to a tracked vehicle."
"All of the vehicles that were able to climb the stairs were tracked," added Smith,
noting that a majority of the other teams tried to use wheels on their machines, which
failed the test.
With Van Buskirk at the controls and the other team members monitoring each of the
moving parts, plus keeping the power cable from interfering, the little "Starch Stroller"
made six trips over the course and delivered 24 pounds of rice to the collection bin in
10 minutes.
"One of the other machines even fell into the bin," Santa laughed. Ah, victory is
sweet when the competition falls apart.
Of course, the CSU-Pueblo team wasn't gloating too much. Long and others were veterans
of previous competitions and said they knew the heartache - and headache - of having a
machine break down in competition.
"We were still tinkering with ours up until the night we left for Arizona," Long
said.
All the team members credited Paul Wallace, who operates the mechanical engineering
machine shop, with giving invaluable help in repairing and machining parts. "We couldn't
have done it without Paul," Smith said.
So do these guys build "Battle Bot" machines in their spare time?
"No, but we had battle contest with the other machines down in Arizona after the
competition and we won that too," Van Buskirk said with a laugh.
The team is free to modify or completely redesign their machine before the
international completion in Florida, but they seemed reluctant to tamper too much. But
they are also waiting to see the other regional competition results to get an idea of
what the competition will be like. After all, the team from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology might bring a real monster of a machine to Orlando.
"We'll probably make some modifications," Long acknowledged.
Which got them talking about ways to do just that.
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