 "Photo: Courtesy of Adam Doyle")
With the remote-controlled robot he started building at his Dad’s machine shop in Red Oak, Adam Doyle won first place in this year’s American Society of Mechanical Engineers Student Design Competition in Florida.
Doyle, a mechanical engineering junior, said he was the first contestant from Texas Tech to make it to the international competition in the category.
“I gained a whole lot of experience in solid works because of all the hours I put into it and that will really help me in the future.” Doyle said. “Also, at the competition I met a lot of people. I’m actually grouping up with the (team) that was second at the regionals, I’m going to group up with them and do another contest this coming year.”
The theme for the competition was “Mars Rocks,” which allowed students to build a robot that could collect planetary rocks over a rugged terrain and bring them to a specified location for later scientific analysis. The goals of the competition were to build a speedy, lightweight rover that could be powered from a very small battery and that could fit into a small metal box.
“Most of the other teams had gone with a tank design with treads,” Doyle said. “They had to add a lot of weight just to keep the treads on, and most of the rovers ended up being a lot heavier than mine.”
The course at the competition was set up with several 4-by-4 planks of wood the rover had to climb and then collect seven rocks weighing 50 grams each.
Doyle said his robot was faster and more efficient than his opponents’ counterparts because of the implementation of a claw climbing mechanism, which allowed the robot to climb over the wood planks.
The mechanism consisted of a wire wrapped around the camera and then connected to the claw. This allowed for the claw on the bottom of the wheel to be automatically extended when needed and to be contracted when in motion.
Doyle said he designed his robot on the interactive SolidWorks Computer-Aided Design software and continued to improve the design during the past several months by using weight and stress tests. The robot was built from aircraft-grade aluminum, which Doyle then anodized, or coated with a protective layer, to match the Tech school colors: red and black.
Of the 17 competing teams at the Boeing-sponsored event, six teams were international and most of the teams were made up of two to four students. Doyle won the competition as a one-man team.
“The creativity and effort put forth by the Texas Tech University team has given us a glimpse into the tremendous talent and potential that exists in the future of the engineering profession,” said ASME President Amos Holt.
Doyle said he joined the Tech ASME chapter after being motivated to work on similar projects in a physics class at Red Oak High School. After his expected graduation from Tech in May 2012, Doyle said he would like to attend medical school and train to become an orthopedic surgeon.
For winning first place in Saturday’s ASME Student Design Competition, Doyle won $3,000 and an additional $1,000 was given to the Tech ASME chapter.
Doyle said his parents and one of his three younger brothers, who will attend Tech next year, accompanied him on his trip to the competition in Florida.
The ASME Student Design Competition was hosted this weekend in conjunction with the 2009 ASME Congress at the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
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