James Riccobono and Alex Michalski placed first at the National Championship of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ (ASME) 2011 Student Design Competition. This particular competition was held on November 13th, 2011 in Denver, Colorado at the ASME 2011 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition.
The Winning Device Designed by: James Riccobono (above) and Alex Michalski
2011 ASME Student Design Competition
H2Go: The Untapped Energy Source?
Students were to design a scaled, proof of concept prototype for rain energy conversion. Their prototype device had to propel a model car as far as possible in a straight line by converting the potential energy of one liter of water at one meter height. All water had to be contained within the device and a penalty was to be assessed for any water spilled.
Device Requirements
1. The only power source to be used was the 1 L of water. If any stored energy was used in the device besides the elevated water, teams had to prove that the amount of additional stored energy after the device operated was equal to or greater than the initial stored energy.
2. The device had to have an easily removable and drainable water storage container capable of storing at least 1.1 L of water.
3. The device had to fit, fully assembled and ready to operate, within a box measuring, on the inside, 370 x 165 x 165 mm. Any expansion or extension had to be done by the device itself during the competition run.
4. Each team was to provide their own car which had to:
- Have a mass of 10 – 90 grams
- Be 25 mm to 45 mm wide
- Be 65 mm to 100 mm long
- Not be used as a projectile
Contest Operation
At the start signal a team member poured the 1L of water into the funnel. No one could touch the device other than to pour the water. The entire liter of water had to be poured continuously in no more than 20 seconds.
At the end of the run, the water was measured to ensure no loss.
Distance traveled was measured using a string. The straight line distance from the initial location of the model car to the final position was recorded. A single point on the car was chosen for measuring and used at initial and final locations.
Each team was given two runs. The second run began immediately after measurements were made from the first. The team was allowed to manually reset their device between runs.
Scoring and Penalties
The winning device had the highest score S where:
D = Distance car traveled in mm
W = Water spilled over 25 mL in mL
i = run number
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