Photos: Sliding With Trash Trucks

July 31, 2019 • By Matt Kelly, mkelly@virginia.edu Matt Kelly, mkelly@virginia.edu

July 31, 2019
An engineer student through his safety goggles at his team’s vehicle at the top of a yellow plastic slide

Safety first. A budding engineer peers through his safety goggles at his team’s vehicle, made of discarded bits, just before it starts its journey down a plastic ramp. (Photo by Tom Cogill)

Twenty high school students, broken into five teams, worked with trash in an attempt to design a vehicle from discarded materials to carry 500 milliliters of water down a 183-inch, plastic-and-wood slide – without spills.

This is Larry G. Richards’ design engineering course. Richards, an emeritus faculty member from the University of Virginia’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is conducting the class this week for BLAST: Building Leaders to Advance Science and Technology, a partnership among the Virginia Space Grant Consortium, the UVA’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and the Commonwealth of Virginia to provide a free, hands-on, three-day residential summer science, technology, engineering and math experience for rising ninth- and 10th-grade students from all areas of Virginia.

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This is the seventh year the program has been on UVA Grounds. Richards, systems engineer Susan Donahue and Piedmont Virginia Community College material science professor Erica Fultz supervised and advised the students through their designs and tests as they devised suspension systems for their cobbled-together vehicles.

The students then tested their vehicles on the slide, with a cargo of golf balls to simulate the weight of the water.

One team designed a vehicle from packing foam and sticks that was almost as long as the slide, so the payload would only have to travel a short distance. While everyone admired the team’s ingenuity, several teams sought to have it disqualified. No ruling was made and the team achieved 415 points out of a possible 500, but still short of the 490 points earned by a team in an earlier class.

Take a look at the budding engineers’ “trash sliders”:

Group watches as one team tests their trash slider
Teen-aged teammates assess how to stitch together pieces of trash to carry a payload of water in an open plastic container down a slide without spilling any of it. (Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications)
Students working at a table together to build something
Larry Richards, center, professor emeritus in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, watches as his design students prepare to launch their team’s vehicle. (Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications)
Shards of stiff packing foam held together with blue masking tape
Shards of stiff packing foam held together with blue masking tape are part of this team’s vehicle design. (Photo by Tom Cogill)
Group looks at a trash slider that was invented
One team designed a vehicle almost as long as the slide, assuming it would spill less water the shorter the distance the payload traveled. (Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications)

 

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Matt Kelly

University News Associate Office of University Communications

Article Information

May 18, 2024

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