Cargo Crashers (Group Project)
Cargo Crashers is a kit aimed at teaching students more about mechanical engineering but more importantly the trial and error nature of tinkering. The goal of this workshop is to build a remote control car that can deliver the cargo from A to B. Custom blocks are included that can connect everything from the control board, cargo basket and motors to each other and be used to build the chassis of the car.
Ideation
Our idea started out very simple with a car building kit where the goal was to as quickly as possible drive over a course where the student could upgrade parts such as the wheels and suspension. This idea however took away from the key playful and creative nature of tinkerin, it focussed more and more on optimization. Thus we wanted to add a part where the students would design their own parts of the track which would be connected together however we felt that this still moved away from the tinkering culture.
In the next iteration we went back to basics and viewed our car idea from the perspective of the facilitator and student. As we wanted to move away from optimization we decided to focus more on the quick iteration and trial and error culture of tinkering. Our new concept would require students to create a car that would deliver cargo to a drop off point where another car would be defending it, adding to the unpredictability of tinkering. These cars could go head to head and potentially break, allowing for reflection and improvements for the iteration of the car and round in the game.
To keep true to our goal of teaching about mechanical engineering in our workshop we needed a plug and play solution that allowed students to program and set up the pico with electronic components without this being the complete focus. Thus for the hardware we standardized connectors and created a connection that allows for easy connection of components such as servos, motors and batteries without the risk of breaking anything.
For the software on the Pico we wanted to create a scratch type visual programming interface where users could program the buttons on the remote with actions on the car. As this turned out to be harder than we thought to build and we felt that this would take away from the focus on mechanical engineering, we shifted to a configuration solution. Our new solution would be a configuration software where students could map servos to movements on the controller.
Playground for facilitators
Our cargo crashers kit is not only a playground for students but also for the facilitator, our kit can be used to fulfill different learning goals. We developed a workshop where the goal is to deliver cargo from A to B where another car can be added that can try to defend and obstruct the delivering team. However due to the open nature of this project the goal can be changed to reflect different learning goals that the facilitator wants to achieve. For example: for more experienced students the workshop could focus on autonomy with sensors being added and being programmed. For the facilitator the sky's the limit as any adition can be designed and connected into our ecosystem.
Group members: Ahmed Mahran, Damian Kagenaar, Rashida Dudhiawala, Victor Zugravu & Valentijn Embrechts