Talking with the manufacturing companies and engineers at the conference

This event was a parts show for many manufacturing companies. Some of these manufacturing companies made parts such as custom circuit boards by woodcutting, laser cutting, and more. By going around and talking to many different engineers, we were able to learn a lot about different engineers. We learned about the processes that it takes to make different parts. It was very interesting to learn about all of the places that the various companies came from.

Taking a picture with the CSI engineers (left) and showing the CSI employees how to drive the robot (left)

Our team went to tour and demo the company Cardiovascular Systems Inc. (CSI). Three of the employees there gave us a tour of their manufacturing facilities. CSI primarily makes catheter controllers which are used in surgeries to remove calcified blockages in arteries. The head of the catheter is diamond coated and spins quickly which wears down the organic material blocking the artery. The employees explained the different parts of the tool and how they are made. We saw the catheter wire being woven and the head being soldered onto the tip. They even showed us the clean room where the final products are packaged and sterilized. Where there our team also presented tpo the engineers about the Freight Frenzy game, FIRST robotics, and our robot. We shared this so they had context for the design and purpose of our robot. The engineers were able to drive the robot around to see how it collects the Freight and moves with the triangular Kiwi Drivetrain. Many of them really enjoyed this and we gave them robot driver’s licenses for their achievement. We had a great time and our team members greatly appreciated seeing this part of the engineering field.

We presented to the employees of the company, Bind Benefits, and demonstrated our robot to the people there.

First, we gave them a presentation about youth robotics and the Freight Frenzy game. We explained how our robot works and detailed the programming specifically since we talked specifically with the engineers focusing on Bind’s website and app. We invited the engineers there to drive the robot and we answered their questions about youth robotics. We then received a tour of the company’s facilities and talked with some of the engineers at the demo. Since Bind is mostly focused on software we went more in-depth on the programming and computer vision portions of our robot when speaking with them. They were very nice and it was interesting to see the way that the company ran. Many of the employees work in Bulgaria so many of the attendees watched our presentation virtually.

Two of our members participated in a prosthetics workshop hosted by the company Form5 from Ohio. Our members were there to learn about the creation process of prosthetics. We got the chance to share what FIRST is and educate the volunteers on what we do as a robotics team. This workshop was spread across 3 days. On the first day, we learned about different limb injuries, the many kinds of prosthetics, and the history of prosthetics. The next 2 days were spent designing and prototyping a custom limb. Throughout the workshop we learned the process of creating a prosthetic limb for a client, rigging the movement of prosthetic parts, and advanced CAD techniques. It was really fun being able to work with other students from the FIRST community and we plan to reach out to Form5 to learn more about Fusion 360. 

One of the Algae Growth Labs we visited.

After meeting some representatives of the U of M biosystems lab, we took a tour of their facility and learned about various projects they were working on. A majority of the research we saw was about algae relating to plastics. One scientist showed us algae designed to digest plastic and convert it into other, more useful materials while another scientist showed us algae that produces environmentally friendly plastic. We also saw some research into natural plant-grown gasses and were able to tour each one of these facilities. Some of our members who were more interested in these subjects got tons of very useful information from this visit.