The Year 9 Engineering students have been challenged throughout the year to engineer a range of solutions to various problems. Mechanical Engineering was the focus area in Semester 2 and students were given the task of  engineering a swimming robot. Black and White caught up with two of the boys to hear their reflections on the project.

This year each student in Year 9 was able to choose their own electives. I was one of the fortunate students to choose Engineering, an interesting and entertaining elective where we develop solutions to various different tasks and challenges. Our latest project was to design a robot which would be able to swim a lap of a 10m swimming pool.

The introduction to robotics, cams and linkages and gear boxes in the course has been very enjoyable. Overall the entire process of researching, designing and creating the robot has been very exciting as we are able to use the school’s various pieces of software including the 3D printer, the laser cutter and the vacuum former. After we tested everyone’s robots it was interesting to see the different designs each person had created. Although not everyone’s robot succeeded, I feel that the entire class definitely enjoyed the project and their new insights into the world of engineering.

Krishen Thevarajah (9/ME)

Our final build project was to design, make and test a structure that could “swim” a distance of 10m. The robot had to make use of cams and linkages and have some method of propulsion. It also had to float. The main part of the project was to design and make cam systems that could propel a boat in water. In testing, most of the cams worked, but a lot of them weren’t aligned or the weight wasn’t distributed properly and so a lot didn’t go straight. We spent six weeks on the project and it was my favourite one so far.

Harry Boyd (9/MO)