Hackberry Voyagers
Team SPIRIT
What is Voyagers?
The purpose of Hackberry Voyagers was to inspire and cultivate a love for STEAM learning amongst the Berry College Middle Schoolers. Each team was tasked with creating a rover that would autonomously drop seeds while traveling down a track with painted targets.
Making The Rover
This was the first test of the rover body running along the track. After the run, we discussed how the seeds were going to be deployed and stored.
The seed dropper was prototyped using foamboard as a detachable unit from the main Rover Frame for easy prototyping.
These videos are of the first tests with the screw design for the seed dropper.
A basic prototype was created from the base and seed dropper using hot glue and foam board.
This video shows the first track test of the fully assembled foam board model. We wanted to see how far it traveled and if the seeds were dropped smoothly.
A wooden model was created from the foam board pieces used to create the previous prototype with the 3D printed screw firmly secured.
Here are some of the placement results of our first trials with the fully assembled rover.
An issue discovered in the trials was that seeds would bounce around when they dropped from the screw so the students brainstormed and rapid prototyped a slide to control the seed decent and placement.
During each trial, students were given trail sheets to mark the position of the dropped seeds as well as the total points scored according to the targets hit. Making it across the track qualified for +10 points.
Rover Hero Image
