Design 1 Colorado School of Mines Project

We created a prototype to demonstrate how we would solve the problem of picking up trash on highways and roadside green spaces. I led this team in creating our RC car prototype which was a 3 in 1 product to be used by the Department of Transportation. We designed a modular system that used a conveyor for the big trash, a vacuum for the smaller stuff, and then a mower to cut the grass.

These systems would all be attached modularly to a truck which would both cut costs and allow for more efficiency in trash pickups. All of these systems have been used so far industrially and so the combination would make them much more efficient and more marketable. This marketability would also be increased since you can remove or add 3 of these systems in whatever order or combination you wish. The RC car that we created to demonstrate this concept was made from mostly 3d printed parts and some Bezgar RC car parts. In addition to leading this project, I made the RC car chassis in SolidWorks, did the electrical, and made a modular raising and lowering demonstration for the full-scale truck.

In the media below, you can see a few different versions of the project. The final version has the front and rear suspensions attached to the assembly. Throughout our project, we had a few struggles with 3d printing and combining those pieces with the preexisting RC car molded pieces. I had to recreate our clipping system, which initially was just a regular clip that had nubs on the end. Those snapped too easily though, so I had to recreate the clips that wrap around the mount and then are just simply screwed in. I also had to remake several pieces and redo a lot of the chassis assembly so that the final 3d printed pieces could work the RC car parts that we were keeping.

There is a photo of many of those failed pieces below in addition to the final versions of the two primary front assembly parts (dark blue filament).

Included below is also the Demonstration model I mentioned above. This model demonstrates the raising and lowering aspects of the vacuum, conveyor, and mower, as well as the modularity of the full-scale chassis design. In the pictures, you can see two bulbous-shaped pieces that represent pneumatic pistons that push the system down. There are springs below that push the system back up. In addition, I made it so that equipment can easily bring the modules onto the suspension system via an eye screw through the spherical mounts. This eye screw can then be attached to a chain and lifted in, where it will then be locked in place by plates that slide down around it. The entire suspension system would then be attached to rods at the top and kept in place via springs that could take away impact energy from the rest of the truck.

The Conveyor and Vacuum were based on the Barber Conveyor and Eskes Vacuum Truck.