All posts tagged: team

FHS ROBOTICS and REALIZE

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Realize is a sponsor of the Tiger Dynasty Robotics Club at Fishers High School. Tiger Dynasty’s focus is developing student’s skills in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, marketing, and design while also developing leadership and communication skills that students will carry with them into college and their professional lives. The team is committed to maintaining a student leadership structure of the team to help foster leadership opportunities for the students. The robotics team at FHS fosters an environment for students to truly discover their career interests with expert mentors from the fields to guide them along their way. Team 5010 provide chances for the students of Fishers High School to practice, apply, and see in action the science and math the students learn every day at school. It provides students reason to continue learning and pursue fields that they are interested in.  Tiger Dynasty helps guide and show students through the complete process from the conception of ideas to making their ideas a reality, showing them of what they are truly capable of doing.

 

We talked with Alex Chrisman from the team to get an update on what is going on with FHS Robotics.

 

“We operate as a part of the FIRST (For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) organization under the FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) program. As a team, we compete head-to-head against high schools from all around the state and even the world. Every year, NASA and Disney partner up with the FIRST program to come up with a game for our robots to compete in. From there, we have 6 weeks to build a robot from scratch to compete in these competitions.”

 

 

Realize is a proud sponsor of FHS Robotics by way of providing Somos NeXt parts which Alex states were an integral part of the drive train they created.

 

 

“The drive train design we desired would not had been possible without the help of Realize Inc. This year, the game will be particularly brutal on robots.  It involves a lot of traversing over uneven ground, something which a standard set of wheels would not had been able to handle. We decided this year to design a tank tread drive train with suspension from the ground up. The robotics supplier where we typically get our parts does carry a pair of treads, but they were priced at nearly $200 a piece. Instead, we decided to go with a timing belt like you would find on your car, saving us nearly $300 alone. From there, we designed a system around the belt to fit our needs. Because we were doing a 100% custom drive train, many of the parts we would need to get the robot to work did not exist. Thankfully, Realize Inc. was able to help us out. Realize was able to print out our custom parts to fit the track of our desire. These parts comprise of about 90% of both the suspension and tension system. Without those parts, our team would not had been able to complete this drive train of our desire.”

 

 

mereedFHS ROBOTICS and REALIZE
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Realize and Penn State Formula SAE

Realize enjoys working with students that are in the process of doing amazing things. We are a sponsor of the Penn State Formula SAE team and helped them out with a new intake. We talked with George Mishkin, Team Captain,  about how they are using 3D Printing and additive manufacturing to gain an advantage over the competition.

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Realize: Tell us about your team and how we started working together.

 

George: Penn State Formula SAE is a student run design team with the task of designing and prototyping a formula style racecar for the annual Formula SAE competition. At this competition, held at Michigan International Speedway, teams from all over the world are judged in both static and dynamic events including: cost of production, ergonomics, an investment presentation, acceleration, autocross time, and a grueling endurance race. The competition provides students with an opportunity to apply their engineering, organization, and communication skills in an industry-like setting. Every year, the team 3D prints a new intake design and that is how the relationship started between Realize and the team.

 

How did you use Realize and 3D Printing to help with your car?

 

Every year, the team needs to design a new intake for the car. The 3D printers the team uses in house is no where near as technical as the team would like them to be because we need to print an intake that is lightweight and durable. We find that Realize and their 3D printers supply us with our needs.

 

How do you think you will use additive manufacturing in the future and are there any new directions or capabilities you would like to see in the industry?

 

In the future, I feel I will use additive manufacturing as a means to test new prototypes. In the automotive industry, new components are being invented all the time. It is one thing to see this new component on screen, but it is another to see it being used. Additive manufacturing will allow me to print my new component and test right away to see if it works in the total design. This way, I can make changes right away instead of waiting for mold to be created first, saving me time along with money. I would like to see more components mass produced using additive manufacturing. The team makes our uprights by machining aluminum in a CNC machine. This process takes weeks to make just one upright. If they were to be done using additive manufacturing, the uprights would only take days. I feel industry needs to shift mass produced parts over to additive manufacturing.

 

What were the biggest challenges with creating the parts we did for you?

 

The biggest challenges with creating our parts is making sure the intake is positioned correctly to the headers on the engine along with the intake being durable. The team has seen in the past where the throttle body breaks the neck of the intake due to the weight of the throttle body. We have also seen the intake broken due to removing it from the engine. The team has to maintain a balance between durability and lightness of the intake and it is always a struggle.

 

What is something that you personally would like to have 3D Printed?

 

I would love to have a 3D printed corvette. It has been my favorite car ever since I was a young boy and it still is today. I could stare at one all day.

 

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The Realize AMUG 2015 award winning project: Klarg

KLARG

KLARG

Realize, Inc. scores a victory in the Technical Competition at AMUG with KLARG!

The Realize team created Klarg for entry into the 2015 Technical Competition at the Additive Manufacturing Users Group 27th annual education and training conference. This creation was a winner for the Realize team and we are very proud of this accomplishment. That makes our team two for two. (Realize won this same award with our last entry in 2012) Please check out the video of how KLARG was created. Meet the team that gave life to this award winning character.

 

 

Winner!

Charlie & Noelle with KLARG

mereedThe Realize AMUG 2015 award winning project: Klarg
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Realize Sponsors High School Robotics Team

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Realize, Inc. is proud to support local science and technology students in the Indianapolis area. Recently we sponsored the Hamilton Southeastern High School Robotics Team. We talked with HSE Physics/Pre-Engineering Teacher Jeff Wilkins about the program.

 

 Tell me about the HSE Robotics Team, What does your team do?

HSE Robotics, aka Royal Robotics, started back in 2005. That year, my Principles of Engineering (POE) classes participated in BEST Robotics (www.bestinc.org) and the Digital Electronics (DE) class participated in Botball (www.botball.org). The robotics club at HSE now participates in the VEX Robotics Competition (www.vexrobotics.com) and has been competing since 2010. BEST Robotics requires students to make a robot out of common materials from scratch. Plywood, PVC and some sheet metal are the main materials used to create these robots. My Engineering Design and Development (EDD) class still participates in this competition to this day. Botball is a completely autonomous robotics competition that requires the team to build a robot out of a lego platform and an iCreate (from the company that brought us the Roomba, iRobot). Students have 8 weeks to design, build and program a robot to complete the task for the year. VEX Robotics is where our after school Robotics Club will compete. This competition uses materials that are used in the PLTW program and the parts and pieces are premade, so designing and assembling a robot is very quick and easy.

Why is this team important for students and the school?

We have over 50 students participating in Robotics Club this year, as well as, 22 students in EDD that are participating in the BEST Robotics Competition.

How did the Realize Sponsorship help your team?

Your generous donation allowed us to purchase a GCC Laserpro Spirit GX laser cutter which is used for fundraisers for robotics club and to cut the main chassis of our robots for the BEST Competition.
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What do you love about Robotics?
Robotics is sports for geeks. It has all of the excitement, hard work, and practice of athletic sports and allows students to excel on a different playfield.

How can you see Robotics and 3D Printing working together in the future?
Yes, we will be using our 3D printer to create parts and pieces for an R2D2 that we will be building next semester. It allows someone to design the robot in a 3D modeling software and get a prototype very quickly without expensive and time consuming machining.

What do you think students need more information on regarding the additive manufacturing industry?
All of the different types that are available. Most just think of FDM because that is what we have at HSE, but there are so many other options out there.

If you could 3D Print anything, what would that be?

Well, since I own one, I can print about anything I want, but 3D printing a house out of concrete would be really cool. My favorite item to 3D print so far were a bunch of digital sculpts that the Tech Art Club at Fall Creek Intermediate students designed. They were very excited to get a physical model of what they had designed on their iPad’s using 123D Creature App.

 

*If you have any questions or are interested in sponsoring  you can contact Jeff.  [email protected]  317-594-4190 ext. 11521.

 

mereedRealize Sponsors High School Robotics Team
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