Engineering Students Deliver Culinary's Baked Goods To Staff

Photo by Khanh Do | Fredy Callejas Jimenez controls the robot to deliver a cookie to Ms. Dohm.

Students in John F. Kennedy’s Engineering Essentials class built robots with 3D printed components to be put to the test during a food delivery trial run prepared by the Culinary class. The project blends creative thinking, hands-on learning, and problem solving.

Chase Adams, the engineering teacher, thought of the project because he wanted his students to learn more practically.

“It is part of the curriculum for students to figure out a plan for how to coordinate robots in a warehouse setting,” stated Adams, “so rather than do exactly what the curriculum had, I thought it’d be more fun to do something in real life on campus.”

Ranveer Singh (9) said he designed his robot by first considering his delivery system.

“I thought of a trap door system at first, but I realized it may cause damage to the product, so I remodeled it to open differently,” explained Singh.

Shresth Katiyar (9) described how his team went through a similar brainstorming process.

“We first thought through what types of machinery we can put in a robot and about the problem we’re solving,” said Katiyar. “After that, we came up with a conclusion and a design that would work best.”

Students started off their builds with a standardized robot kit and progressed to the real design process by 3D modeling their own custom attachments for the robot delivery system using CAD, or computer aided design.

“They all start off with the same robot because it comes in a kit. But their attachments that they have made, they were allowed the creative freedom to think of how they would want to attach it,” explained Adams. “There’s a lot of variation, and some are putting it on what already exists as an arm and other students are actually attaching it to the body of the robot.”

“We learned how to 3D model using CAD programs, how to design a prototype, and also how to code the software,” remarked Singh. “It was exciting to make 3D models and see them come to life.”

However, the projects came with inevitable difficulties that students had to learn to overcome.

“They’re learning all the steps that go into design, and they are learning how to be functional and accurate with their work,” said Adams. “They’re learning about errors that can occur when 3D printing and the 3D printing process.”

Katiyar and his team ran into issues with coding their robot to function perfectly.

“Building the robot wasn’t that bad, but the coding was the hard part. It had to be very precise, so we had to change a lot of the measurements while coding,” described Katiyar.

Singh said his team saw difficulties during the 3D printing process, as their designs had proved to be difficult turning into reality.

“When we were 3D printing, it failed a couple of times and there were some problems with our design, so we had to fix it. But in the end, we got there.”

While Adams is happy with his students’ progress, he hopes that they take away some wider ideas from his course.

“I think the big thing for me is I want students to understand that they can solve problems on their own and that they have good ideas,” stated Adams. “I want them to grow in their confidence and to believe in themselves and their own ideas.”