Alumni

Gantry System, Robotic Pack Mule Highlight Design Expo

The annual Design Expo once again brought out the best in College of Engineering students.

Steve Starkey ’10 ME, at the Engineering Design Expo in May, demonstrates the robot designed and built by the Valparaiso Independent Robotics Team.

One project consisted of a system to increase the efficiency of a local not-for-profit organization’s paper-shredding service.

Valpo engineering students developed a gantry system to move several hundred pounds of paper into a truck for delivery purposes. This increased the efficiency of the system to enable the shredding service to pick up more paper.

Another project involved the creation of the Robotic Pack Mule, a robot that transports a payload of up to 150 pounds by following a guide without the need for direct human control.

It was built from scratch, using a student-designed chassis and stock motors, and can move at a speed of 4 mph and run up to 30 minutes without recharging the batteries.