On Friday May 10th a team of University Physics students competed in the annual General Dynamics High School Engineering Competition. The team consisted of Keagan Carson, Nathaniel Austin, James Lambert and Taylor Robertson. The task was to build a zip-line delivery system that operated autonomously. The device needed to roll down various zip-lines and drop hacky sacks into designated targets. The device had to incorporate Arduino microprocessors and had to meet size constraints.
New Lebanon’s “Air Assault” team placed first in the presentation-poster board round. After many on-the-fly adjustments, the team finished second overall in the performance, or hit the target round. The team succeeded largely because each member used his/her strengths to move the project forward. Nathaniel Austin 3-D printed some very critical pieces that made device operate flawlessly. Keagan Carson brought his computer programming experience to the team to make the servos operate smoothly. James Lambert cut, and assembled the structure. Taylor Robertson created a poster board theme and organized the engineering/physics information into a winning presentation. Congratulations!