John Kelly and Nick Jones knew they had a challenge on their hands when they entered the 2006 Biosystems Engineering Balsawood Design Competition . . . but they didn’t know that they would walk away with a new contest record. Engineering freshmen Kelly and Jones bested 18 other teams to take home the top prize, new iPODS for both team members.
In the second annual contest, teams of freshmen engineering students took on the challenge of designing and building a balsawood structure capable of protecting a ping-pong ball from a crushing weight. The teams were allowed only 20 minutes apiece to bring their design to life using balsawood and superglue (any fingers accidentally glued to the structure could not be used for support and had to be removed before judging began). The designs covered a dizzying array of weights, heights, sizes and shapes.
Each structure was compressed in a testing machine that gradually added weight until the structure failed, or was ‘crushed’ under the pressure of the weight. While the structures were tested in a nearby lab, contestants were able to watch the ‘crush-off’ via webcast, enjoying pizza and soft drinks provided by the Biosystems Engineering department and anxiously awaiting the results.
When the testing was complete, Kelly and Jones’ simple but elegant design easily topped all other teams with a strength-to-weight ratio of 29,953, nearly doubling the ratio of the second place team, and easily beating the previous contest ratio of 17,000. Matthew Edmunds and Samantha Koelman made an excellent showing at 16,681 and won USB pen drives with MP3’s for their second place entry. Third place, with a strength-to-weight ratio of 13,827, went to Gregory Peterson and Matthew Campbell. Peterson and Campbell took home 2 GB USB pen drives for their efforts. Also taking home 2 GB pen drives for their fourth place finish were Mitch Groothuis and Caleb Ryan, whose entry boasted a 12,618 ratio. After the top prizes were awarded, a random drawing was held among the remaining contestants for another iPOD, which went to Sony Sam.
Full results are at http://bioengr.ag.utk.edu/balsa/report.asp?final=True and a slide show of images is at http://bioengr.ag.utk.edu/images/slides.asp?dir=balsa/2006&title=Balsa%20Competition%202006
Robin Moody
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