MCC Daily Tribune Archive

The abstracts of MCC engineering students John Rodman and Timothy Van Slyke were selected to be presented at the SUNY annual undergraduate research Conference (SURC) on Friday, April 15, 2016. A very few Community College engineering students participate in this event.  Last year's submissions were 180 poster presentations, and approximately 100 oral presentations and performances!  The event was attended by 500 students and over 100 faculty members from 35 different institutions.  It is predicted that the 2016 event will surpass last year. The event will be hosted at SUNY Cobbleskill. 

Their projects were a ENR 259 class project.

Here are the abstracts:

Soft Robotics - Engineering Meets Biomimicry

In 2013, a team of students from Harvard University developed the Soft Robotics Toolkit.  The result of a multi-disciplinary effort from fields including Materials Science, Control Systems, and Software, Mechanical, and Electrical Engineering, the Soft Robotics Toolkit provides the informational resources necessary for students in STEM fields to explore biomimetics. With hybridized academic fields becoming strikingly more plentiful, further research into the development of soft robots is an inevitability in STEM fields.

This presentation seeks to promote the development of biologically based technologies through the development of a soft robot. Emphasis has been placed on portability, and manufacturability, and affordability with the system taking advantage of custom circuit boards (PCBs), modern battery technology, and specialized polymers to promote life-like motion, and gentle stimuli. Included in this presentation will be a demonstration of the developed soft robot, as well as a discussion about the methods of development, practicality of the robot, and the time/financial cost of development.

Development and Application of Continuously Variable (Centrifugal) Transmissions

A Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) is device used to vary the amount of mechanical effort required from a motor or engine during operation. The most common transmissions have a set number of gears which act as ‘steps’ to improve mechanical advantage sequentially without overloading the motor. A CVT however has no gears and varies the amount of effort required by the motor based on how much power the motor is outputting as well as the applied load at that instant. Two centrifugal CVT models were developed and applied to scaled vehicles (a car, and a hydroplane boat) to determine if a CVT would offer any performance advantages when compared to a direct power transfer configuration (non-variable gearing). The findings suggest that a CVT may improve acceleration, top speed, and RPM optimization in comparison to direct power transfer methods.

If you are unable to attend to this event, these two brilliant students will be presenting again at MCC Scholars’ Day on April 29, 2015.