Lego Robotics Volunteer Day

Today, Matt Hudson, Matt Korpela, Nicholas Esler, Nicole Becchetti, and I helped the local Upward Bound with their Lego Robotics and Iron Range Engineering tour day. We started the day off by setting up the course that the high school students had to conquer. It was a large rectangular shaped area with five plastic balls slightly bigger than golf balls and much lighter. They were evenly spaced from the corners with one in the center. The students had the choice of using motion, sound, color, touch, and line sensors in the robot's program. The initial construction for the robots was the same for every group, but after it was functional they were allowed to add any additions to their robot. There were four groups of five to six students, which I thought was a little too large for a team. With teams that large, it is really hard to assign every member a significant part to the competition. Most teams had one to two members that lacked in participation, but they all appeared to have fun. The winning model was slightly dissapointing to me. The robot had a long horizontal plow-type arm across the front of it, that simply drove straight forward to remove all of the balls in 4.8 seconds. My favorite robot had a basket-shaped plow approximately five inches in width (compared to Team SKUDD's four ft. arm) that would drive straight through the balls, walk them to the edge of the contest area, and then turn and charge towards the next ball. Unfortunately, it took them 29.4 seconds, which was not fast enough to beat Team SKUDD's simple solution robot. After the robotics challenge, we showed the students around IRE and explained our program to them. I had a great time volunteering today, and I'm know the rest feel the same way!

Proofread by: Austin Mekash and Matt Korpola

Meta-Cognitive Learning and Mesabi Classes

I have started taking a psychology class at Mesabi Range to fulfill my general education requirements, and I saw this as an opportunity to apply my meta-cognitive strategies from IRE to areas other than engineering. Instead of simply reading the chapters and taking the tests like I did before coming to IRE, I'm writing outlines of the course material and answering the extra questions to help cement what I've learned. I review the material for the sake of understanding it, so even after the tests are over I can retain that knowledge. I'm also creating my own models to remember difficult topics, which is a method I've never used before in a general education class.

Proofed by Erin

Lunch Speaker

Today Rick Smith was our guest lunch speaker. His previous job was at Rockwell Automation in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he worked as a systems engineer. His main role there was to help bridge the communication gap between the heavy technical/design engineers, the customer, and upper management. He made sure that the engineers had designed the controls in an aircraft's fuselage the customer had expected. One of the things he strongly encouraged us students to do was to step out of your box or comfort zone, and experience the different opportunities life may provide us with. The second thing he strongly encouraged, was to try and create those opportunities for yourself by not only promoting yourself, but putting yourself in the right place at the right time. Rick recently has moved back to the area as a automation engineer at UPM-Blandin paper company in Grand Rapids.

Alex, Erin, and myself cooked and served chicken wild rice soup along with cake in honor of Dan Ewert's birthday tomorrow.

Proofed by Christine and Richie

Team DesignWise

The project I am working on this semester is with IRE's newest partner, DesignWise. DesignWise is a non-profit company that is dedicated to improving health care devices for pediatric patients. Our group met with the founder/CEO Brad Slaker on Tuesday to discuss the requirements and define the scope of our project this semester. The project is to develop an idea that has a patent pending that was filed by an RN from Chicago. Some work has been done, and we have been tasked with carrying it to the next step, which will hopefully be a working prototype if this idea is found to be feasible. The process will involve many experiments and tests to determine if this idea is possible, and if it is economically feasible. The device we are making improvements on is a commodity in the medical world and most likely has to remain a commodity, so the economical feasibility is important to our product. This meeting went very well and I am looking forward to the progression of this project and the future of the partnership between DesignWise and IRE.

Proofed by: Brianna

INSTRUMENTATION

Today Dr. Dan Ewert held a learning conversation on Instrumentation.  What was very interesting is that the conversation started out with a talk about the many forms of energy that exist in the universe and the relationship of these different forms with one another.  All of these various types were then condensed into four fundamental forms that we worked with for this particular session:

·         Electromagnetic Energy
·         Mechanical Energy
·         Chemical Energy
·         Nuclear Energy

The initial meaning of this discussion and how it pertained to Instrumentation was at first confusing but it started to make sense after Transducers were introduced into the talk.  Essentially, when energy changes from one form to another it is due to a change in properties (chemical to electrical for instance). 

What we learned today, is that Transducers and Sensors detect the changes in these properties which occur when energy changes forms.

Being a Mesabi Student

Today is my first day attending a State and Local Politics class here at Mesabi. I need to take this class to fulfill my general education requirements for graduation. I am looking forward to getting out and attending a normal class for the first time since my days at Itasca. I have an interest in politcs and of the listed classes that fulfill my requirements, this one stood out to me. I am hopeful this class will challenge me to think about the way politics are in this day and age and to give me the chance to share my views on issues. Two other IRE students are taking the class too. This gives us an opportunity to intermingle IRE with its host college, Mesabi.

Proofread by: Brianna

Team Blandin

Once again UPM-Blandin Paper Company has provided IRE with a great project to let students gain some real world experience. This semester is a thermodynamics project. The goal of the project is to gain knowledge about Line 6's dryer section and then optimize the dryer system. The dryer system uses steam to heat dryer cans which remove moisture from the paper. By finding ways to reduce steam usage in the dryer section, our team will provide Blandin with very valuable information. With the rise in energy costs, less steam usage would greatly benefit Blandin financially. The aspects of this project involve great opportunities for our team to gain knowledge about paper making, learn advanced technical skills, and to get some valuable industry experience. My teammates and I are excited about the project and will keep you updated as we progress.

Excited to be back!

3 days into the semester, and I'm glad to be back! We started off the semester with our project groups for this semester. I'm in the Hibbing Taconite group. We are to create a system that raises a 40,000 lb counterweight 4 feet to release tension on a 1,300 ft conveyor belt. After the tension is released, the conveyor belt can be moved or replaced. The 40,000 lb counterweight is a mixture of steel plates and concrete, constructed in a rectangular shape, suspended with a cable and rollers. Our group has some initial ideas, but we are still brainstorming. I'll post later with our decision and project progress.

Proofed by: Tyler Bartek