No edit summary
Line 30: Line 30:




*'''Science Olympiad'''- I was one of the Team Captains for the Grand Haven Science Olympiad Team for the 2012 season, and participated in Science Olympiad since 2006.  
*'''Science Olympiad'''- I was one of the Team Captains for the Grand Haven Science Olympiad Team for the 2012 season, and I participated in Science Olympiad since 2006.  
[[Image:Robot_Arm.pdf|thumb|left|An early documentation file of our robot arm]]
[[Image:Robot_Arm.pdf|thumb|left|An early documentation file of our robot arm]]
Grand Haven Science Olympiad has a long history of high level competition, and has attended every national tournament ever held. As a member of the high school team, our National Record was 2nd, 6th, and 3rd this past year. I was a State champion in 4 individual events and National runner-up in two events, one being balsa wood tower building and the other being rubber band helicopter duration. I am unable to show any Science Olympiad pictures featuring our towers or helicopters because I do not wish to compromise the team's designs.
Grand Haven Science Olympiad has a long history of high level competition, and has attended every national tournament ever held. As a member of the high school team, our National Record was 2nd, 6th, and 3rd this past year. I was a State champion in 4 individual events and National runner-up in two events, one being balsa wood tower building and the other being rubber band helicopter duration. I am unable to show any Science Olympiad pictures featuring our towers or helicopters because I do not wish to compromise the team's designs.

Revision as of 23:37, 23 September 2012

Left to right: Lucas Wilder, Terry Greene, Olin Johnson, Ben Maat. This is the 2012 Grand Haven ROV team after our initial pool testing.

About Me

Lucas Wilder
I am a first-year Electrical Engineering student at Michigan Technological University. My hometown is Grand Haven, MI. I have a passion for messing around with anything electronic or mechanical. I love to take things apart, and my success rate at reassembly is steadily increasing. I am getting involved with the open source hardware movement because I can see it is the future of business and engineering, and I am determined to be at the forefront.

Interests

  • Robotics- Electronic controls and mechanics
  • Cheating the system- The idea of using a relatively homemade 3D printer to create really expensive scientific equipment cheaply gets me very excited. I'm all about helping people, and what better way to do it than this?
  • Working with my hands- I'd always much rather be experimenting and working on a project than working behind a desk crunching numbers.
  • Learning- I'm always looking for new knowledge that will allow me to expand my skill set. While I don't have any experience programming, I'm dying to be able to program a micro-controller and can't wait to learn. Electronics fascinate me and I want to know how everything works.

Experience

  • Underwater ROV- I led a small team of fellow high school seniors in constructing an underwater Remote Operated Vehicle during the Spring of 2012.
The second ROV I helped to construct. Spring 2012.

Features: HDPE custom milled side rails with aluminum cross bars for the chassis

Bilge pump motors housed in custom ABS kort nozzles I helped design and model on Autodesk Inventor in 2011, printed on a Dimension 3D Printer. Custom impeller rig on motor shafts.

Double Cat5 Cable for the tether, delivering power and signal to the motors.

Custom Controller with SPDT switches wired to onboard relays.

IR Color board camera in a custom waterproof ABS casing.

Pneumatic manipulator arm, designed on Autodesk Inventor and then printed out in ABS.

LED lighting


  • Science Olympiad- I was one of the Team Captains for the Grand Haven Science Olympiad Team for the 2012 season, and I participated in Science Olympiad since 2006.
An early documentation file of our robot arm

Grand Haven Science Olympiad has a long history of high level competition, and has attended every national tournament ever held. As a member of the high school team, our National Record was 2nd, 6th, and 3rd this past year. I was a State champion in 4 individual events and National runner-up in two events, one being balsa wood tower building and the other being rubber band helicopter duration. I am unable to show any Science Olympiad pictures featuring our towers or helicopters because I do not wish to compromise the team's designs.

  • Extreme Redesign 3D Printing Challenge- In the fall of 2011 I entered an competition put on by Dimension, a premier 3D printer company. The contest required entrants to either redesign an existing product to improve upon it, or to create an entirely new product. My entry ended up finishing in the Top 10 in this global engineering competition.

To describe my product, first some background is required. My high school recently passed a technology bond and had smart white boards installed in every classroom, accompanied by a "smart cart," bearing a computer used to interface with the board with a monitor mounted on its top. To control the boards, teachers had to use of the two special pens that came with every board, as well as a small remote to operate the projector. However teachers being teachers, they often lost these special implements and then were unable to utilize the valuable technology at their fingertips. So, I designed a simple storage solution I dubbed the "Smart Clip," which clips on top of the LCD monitor on every smart cart and holds the remote and two pens where they are quickly and easily accessible. I also engraved the outline of the school mascot, a buccaneer head, on the top of the clip.

It took a few tries to get all of the tolerances perfect, but I soon had a fully functional prototype printed on our own Dimension Printer. While waiting for the contest results, I presented my prototype to the school principal and she decided that every classroom in the district should have a Smart Clip. Because of the workload the printer was under from the engineering classes, we were only able to print 15-20 clips before I graduated and sold them to interested teachers in the building. However, the money we gained from this venture was able to fully fund the aforementioned Underwater ROV project. I recently heard that they are now being sold throughout Grand Haven Area Public School District this fall, which is awesome. Even though I did not gain any monetary compensation for this invention, I have a product out there with my name on it and it is benefiting hundreds of people, which is all I can ask for. I will add pictures of the clip soon.

Cookies help us deliver our services. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies.