Tension + Integrity = Tensegrity

The Providence Engineering Academy seeks every year to put skills to use for the benefit of the community. From designing playground equipment to running science lessons, "we have an obligation to turn our skills outward to the world around us; we learn not for our own sakes" (quoted from the Engineering Academy application).

This year, the Advanced Engineering I students took on a challenge from our very own fitness guru, Scott Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell, who teaches middle school P.E. and runs our outdoor education program, is passionate about his craft. He wants students to understand the human body, in terms of both structure and motion. Mr. Mitchell has long used tensegrity structures as an analogy to help students visualize these principles.

What's a tensegrity structure, you ask? While a formal definition is somewhat elusive, you know it when you see it. Popularized by the architect Buckmister Fuller and his student, sculptor Kenneth Snelson, these structures feature "compression members floating in a sea of tension." Still confused?

Here's an animated GIF from Wikipedia's page:

The engineering class began with some small models, using elastic bands for the tension elements and wooden dowels for the compression struts.

Victor with the most simple of all tensegrity structures: three sticks
not touching

Victor and Todd with a six-member icosahedron

Josh finds a new use for the 12-stick version

As simple as these look, they take a great deal of effort to plan and assemble. But this was not the end goal; our class aimed to build a giant version of the icosahedron, with compression members 8 feet long!

Attempt 1:

A lot of knots tied to create 24 rope members. Attached lag bolts to 20 lb beams. Got it together and realized that everything was way too loose. Too much sag. Took it apart.

Alena carefully loops the non-slip knot over the bolt

Ben gets those bolts secured

Inital success and exuberance, but everything is far too loose

Attempt 2:

All rope connections shortened by 5 inches to tighten things up.  Unfortunate result: humanly impossible to pull together. Mr. Mitchell attempted to complete the final connections under great duress. Failure, bent bolts, and an abandoned attempt.

Attempt 3:

Straightened out bolts. Loosened all rope lengths by 2 inches. Realized that we can do this the easy way, working with the structure and not against it. Beams held in different orientation. Pulled it all together, but some bolts bent again. Much tighter, much easier, good result!

Colby and Todd compare the 8-foot version to the 12-inch!

Attempt 4:

Practice makes perfect! Rechecked all ropes, and found a few that were too long. Replaced all bolts with thicker ones twice as strong in bending. Worked in new orientation and got it together in under 10 minutes! (Compare this video to the last.)

Mr. Meadth tests it out before anyone else--in the name of safety,
of course!

Todd climbs inside once everything is approved

Eva's turn!

In case it's not clear from the pictures and videos alone, it has to be emphasized that none of the wooden beams you see are touching each other. Each of them is "floating in a sea of tension", held in place by the 24 ropes. This is despite the fact that the entire structure weighs about 160 lb (73 kg).

Here's another interesting observation: in the interest of safety, we strapped a force gauge to the ropes, and measured 150 lb of tension. (These ropes are rated up to 300 lb, so no problem!) But when Mr. Meadth climbed up on top, weighing about 155 lb himself, the rope tension only increased to 190 lb. How fascinating that 155 lb of live weight does not increase the rope tensions by that amount.

In fact, three people at one time were able to climb up on the structure (totalling more than 300 lb), but the max load reading never exceeded 250 lb, with no evidence of any structural problems.

It's stable, folks! It beautifully and naturally distributes extra load all around to find equilibrium, much like the human body. Even as it moves, it naturally corrects, distorts, and stabilizes. Watch Todd roll a few feet in the following video.

Needless to say, Mr. Mitchell was delighted with the outcome, and brought his middle school P.E. students over to see, touch, and feel its dynamic responses. He taught them that the wooden beams are analagous to our bones, and the tensioned ropes are like our ligaments and tendons and muscles. Inspired by the work of Anatomy Trains, it's easy to see what happens when our bodies are injured or out of alignment.

Great work, students! Keep on dreaming, designing, calculating, and serving others! Please share this article freely with friends and family.

A good day's work!

Robots Head to Head

In the Providence Engineering Academy, we take care of a lot of serious business. We use trigonometry to calculate vector components. We learn how Rene Descartes' philosophy paved the way for a flawed view of "the ghost in the machine". We learn how to identify fixed, hinged, and simple supports in typical static structures.

And some days, we just get out there and have head-to-head robot wars!

James gets excited as teammate Nolan drops
one in the bucket!

The challenge: set up a metal remote-control robot to collect as many tennis balls as possible in eight minutes.

The setting: the wooden deck behind Mr. Rottman's room.

The outcome: a whole lot of high-energy fun! (And possibly some learning along the way.)

One robot encounters the harsh realities of the laws of physics...
a quick flip of the claw and it's back in the game!

After a week of careful coding, mechanical modification, and practice, each of the four teams was ready to enter The Pit. Programmers had gone over scores of lines of code in search of errors and optimizations. Extra bits and pieces were judiciously selected and bolted on. Optimistic 9th and 10th Graders jubilantly walked their robots across the yard to be tried against each other: head to head to head to head!

What do you do when your claw stops working in the middle
of the game? Teacher to the rescue!

The first round was not without its upsets. The whistle blew, and three robots sprang to life, but Sam's robot just refused to launch. Mr. Meadth waded through a morass of error messages to find that Sam had inadvertently typed extra characters into his code as he had walked over. A quick fix and back in business!

Sam brought the team back to life despite the time lost, scoring double points along the way to finish with seven total. But nothing could touch Pedro, who expertly picked up no fewer than ten balls!

Joshua places his ball with infinite caution
as Pedro and Sam look on

With help from Claire and Josh, our dedicated senior teaching assistants, the field was reset, and new operators stepped up. After a quick reminder of which buttons did what, the robots roared to life again. Sydney managed to best her teammate's score from four to five, but no one could touch Pedro's teammate, Joshua, who matched his performance with another ten!

James steadies the bucket while Caleb
drops another one in--illegal move?

For the final round, the controls were passed to James, Alan, Sam, and Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn managed to score six, which was impressive enough, but Alan beat her out by one to make seven... and James roared from behind to lead his team to a victorious ten!

Sydney and Kaitlyn felt this way after each
and every ball

Well done to all team members! You coded and designed and built and redesigned and rebuilt. Well done on working together towards the end goal. Final scores are as follows:

Round 1		Round 2		Round 3		Total
Davis	4	Sydney	5	Kaitlyn	6	15
Pedro	10	Joshua	10	Sam P.	4	24
Nolan	5	Caleb	4	James	10	19
Sam K.	7	Zach	2	Alan	7	16

Well done to Pedro, Joshua, and Sam, winning two out of three rounds and getting the highest cumulative score overall. Our next major robotics project will turn our attention to more sober-minded matters. How can robotics technology be used to help the weak and unfortunate? Stay tuned to find out!

MS Bridges: Welcome to Mr. Eves!

Joining us this year at Providence is the highly qualified Mr. Matt Eves. A long-time friend of Mr. Meadth, Mr. Eves brings his experiences in engineering and business to the AP Calculus AB class with our seniors, and the Intro to Engineering class with the middle schoolers.

Mr. Eves wasted no time in getting down to one of our famous projects: The Bridge! In teams of two, with a list of required constraints, they set about building the longest possible bridge. This is more than just messing around with LEGO; students were demonstrating that they had learned the underlying structural principles of triangular trusses and bending beams.

Josue and Larry measure their jointed creation

Jeffry, one of the able teacher assistants, helps Paul and Ryken

Elizabeth, Carmen, Nate, and Abigail take a moment to smile!

Taylor and Will understood the need for vertical triangles...
is there anything they were still missing?

Tess and Bryce carefully counting the pieces they used

Jonny, another of our teacher assistants, helping Hunter and Reggie

(By the way, if you're wondering about the teacher assistants: Jonny, Jeffry, Emma, and Ruby are all acting in this capacity this semester. Having taken this class once already, they are now bringing their learning to another level by helping the other students. There is no better way to learn than by teaching! They have also been taking time out with Mr. Meadth during class to learn CAD tools, with some of their creations being 3D printed.)

Upon completion, the seven teams laid wooden tracks across their bridges and put them to the test. All teams performed incredibly well, with almost no flexing evident. The following video shows the tests--in each one, what elements of design do you see that are contributing to the bridge's strength?

A great start to the year! Next step: learning about gears and torque. Students will combine these lessons with their knowledge of structural strength to build a special machine... can you guess what it is? All this, so we can learn to build a robot that moves properly and is mechanically strong.

Browse around and check out some of our other recent posts. Feel free to email Mr. Meadth or Mr. Eves for any questions about the Providence engineering programs, and share this post freely with family and friends!

Guessing Games and Plywood Furniture

The first couple of weeks are already under our belt, and we are off to a good start in the Providence Engineering Academy! This year, we have ten determined engineers-in-training in the older group, and thirteen in the younger. The older group will spend the year studying statics—the science of things that don't move—and the younger will be learning the ins and outs of both robotics and mathematics.

Both groups started off the year with a simple exercise to test their divergent and convergent thinking skills. Mr. Meadth had a 3D-printed model of an well-known mechanical device hidden in a box, broken down into its twelve constituent pieces. The device was unnamed, but the students were assured that they were very familiar with it, and that there were several such devices in the room all around. He brought out the pieces one by one, and after each new piece was revealed, the students set about guessing what the device could be.

Congratulations to Pedro and Alena! (And also to Claire, who learned not to second guess herself!) After only four of the twelve pieces were revealed, they correctly guessed the identity of the complete device. Sound easy? Here's the four pieces they had in front of them when they guessed correctly. Don't scroll down too far unless you want the answer!

Each of these little red prisms are about half an inch tall in actual size

What could the entire device be?

Give up yet?

Scroll down...

...

If you guessed that the complete device was a lock and key, well done!

The four prisms are on top, called the driver pins

There's even more going on inside!

In their respective classes, Alena's and Pedro's prize was to build the device up from its twelve pieces, without any help from the teacher. With cheering and suggestions from their peers, Alena and Pedro were successfully able to get it all together in time!

Alena fits the pieces together in the new Room 102

There's plenty more going on since then. To get warmed up in their "study of things that don't move", the Advanced Engineering I group is working in three competitive teams to produce a new piece of classroom furniture for Room 102. All three teams settled for variations of plywood lecterns (not podiums—sorry if you've been misusing this word). We look forward to seeing what emerges over the next couple of weeks.

Colby, Gabe, and Todd work together on their piece of modern art;
the purchased plywood patiently awaits!

Stay posted for updates on the furniture, and to find out just what it means to study robotics in the high school program. (Hint: we aren't fooling around with LEGO anymore!)

Summer Camp 2018

It was such a roaring success the first time that we just had to do it all over again! The second annual Providence Engineering Summer Camp finished today, and the brightly lit robot city took wings with our special theme: SPACE. We all know it's the final frontier, and our fifteen campers interpreted this idea in a multitude of ways. Alien invasion... meteorite shower... rocket launch... solar system buildings... 3D printed rockets and planets... so much fun!

Todd helps his team with some simple geometric designs

High school engineering students Joshua, Todd, Alena, and Sam led the charge each day teams of devoted campers from Providence and the broader community. We also had a good deal of help from Isabela! These excellent engineers taught the campers how to build electronic circuits, program robots, 3D print fantastic creations, and design out-of-this-world architecture. Illuminated buildings towered high above the cityscape as tiny robots darted to and fro. Electrified copper rails ran this way and that carrying power to critical components, with printed sculptures dotting the landscape.

Success! A single 3 V coin battery powers nine blue LEDs...
or is it only eight?

There was no messing around, either—these elementary students learned their stuff! You can ask them what "LED" stands for, and what a "forever loop" might be used for. They know how to build a working switch out of paper and copper foil, and some of them even used their movie-making skills to record short action videos!

The Robot City landscape continues to become
increasingly illuminated

As the days went by, the creations became increasingly complex. First was the skyscraper that was literally taller than Mr. Meadth. Then came the red/orange/green traffic light by the illuminated airstrip. 3D printed costumes were designed (by the campers, of course) for the tiny Ozobots in the shape of cars, rockets, and trains. And—of course—there was the obligatory fiesta of robot dance parties, all happening in perfect synchronization.

A delightful blue flower stands bold and tall

The end of each day came all too quickly. With lots to take home, we hope these happy campers will continue to code, invent architecture, and design circuits all summer long! Enjoy the rest of the photos, and we hope to have as many of you as possible back next year!

The 3D CAD model (computer aided design), becomes—by magic!—
a brightly lit reality

A tall rocket stands beside a crashed alien spacecraft

Our campers working hard to create all manner of new buildings

The tallest skyscraper in the room, complete with embedded
meteorites and emergency beacons

The Copper Rocket throws an eerie light out onto the empty streets

The giant completed city!

MS Final Challenge: Flawless Victory!

A new record was set this semester, with the biggest group ever signing up for Intro to Engineering in Room 202. The eighth cohort to take this class, they were full of excitement as they spent the last four weeks of class designing and building a LEGO robot to respond to Mr Meadth's latest Final Challenge.

In some ways, this was the most difficult challenge yet: the robot would be placed in a square walled ring, collect a colored item, and deposit it outside of the ring. Sound simple? To scoop up a smooth plastic object on a smooth wooden floor and get it over that mere 3.5" of height is far more difficult than it sounds! How does the robot know when it has the item in hand? How can it lift it up? How to release it? Should it be able to steer? How does it know when it hits the wall? Will it behave the same way every time?

The game area: an 8 ft wooden square, with 3.5" high walls; five
items were scattered for collection and removal

Mr Meadth's advice to the students was plain: the robot that won this competition would be fast, simple, and reliable. Fast: this is a race against the clock, with only 30 seconds to beat the other robot in the ring. Simple: every additional moving part is one more thing that can go wrong. Reliable: it must do the same predictable thing time after time.

Left to right: Zach and Sam show their formidable forklift machine

After the last frantic rush of finishing work, eight complex machines lined up to take the floor. Bedecked with an impressive array of forklifts, scoops, and shovels, the robots stared each other down with baleful red eyes (ultrasonic sensors, actually, but the lure of personification is hard to overcome!).

Ruby and Brooklyne's robot finds its way into the corner, missing
the yellow item by a whisker!

After an intense Friday of preliminary rounds, it was clear that one team's robot stood out head and shoulders above the rest; Emma and Donna's machine was indeed fast and reliable. Spearing the item every time, undefeated in every round, they were placed in pole position. Honors also went to Avala and Isabela, who did excellently on the first day.

Left to right: Emma and Donna sit proudly after another
winning round!

Emma and Donna (rear) narrowly beat out Avala and Isabela

Teams were given a chance over the weekend to regroup. Any programming or mechanical fixes could be carried out, in time for the elimination rounds. Several teams took advantage of this, and fine-tuned their bot in the hopes of gaining victory.

Left to right: Masa and Ma.kaha pause for the camera while the
competition rages on behind them!

On the big day, it was made clear once again just how challenging this task was. Several teams did not score even once—it really is that hard! Many teams found their robot just didn't know when to lift the item over the wall. The lesson was hard learned: a robot is utterly deaf, dumb, and blind except for proper sensors and programming.

Left to right: Isaac and Josiah carefully plan their attack vector

After several rounds, Emma and Donna once again distinguished themselves as undefeated at the top of the pack. Avala and Isabela also scored solid victories. Josiah and Isaac also scored a victory, as did Sam and Zach. Caleb and Harry deserve an honorable mention; in the last round they were finally able to remove an item from the field... but it hit the ground a quarter-second later than their opponent!

The semi-final was swift and to the point. Emma and Donna maintained their winning streak by pushing Avala and Isabela out of the competition. Isaac and Josiah beat out Sam and Zach and advanced to the final round.

Would Emma and Donna meet their final match? Sadly for the boys, not this time, and not ever! In an astounding display of consistency, the girls won yet again—with a personal best of 4 seconds—while the boys swung wide and missed the target altogether. Flawless victory!

The final victory! Our photographer Isaiah captures the winning
moment an instant before the item hits the ground.

As always, congratulations to all participants, and to the many parents, staff members, and friends who came out to see the competition across both days. We were thrilled to have you, and we look forward to seeing what the next Final Challenge will be.

From left to right: Caleb, Harry, Zach, Josiah, Zach, Isaac, Brooklyne,
Ruby, Avala, Isabela, Emma, Donna, Cameron, Alan, James, Ma.kaha,
Masa, Isaiah, Sydney, Abby, Mr Meadth

Homelessness and Architecture

Earlier this year, our Upper School students spent a day of service around Santa Barbara, with a theme of "homelessness". Students spent time at PATH Santa Barbara, Showers of Blessing, and Food Forward, to name just a few organizations. Our school also has a long history of working with the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission and Habitat for Humanity. So when the time came this year to finish with a major architectural design project, the connection was obvious.

After reviewing some typical architectural projects aimed at alleviating the burden of homelessness, such as the Los Angeles Star Apartments, we decided to pay a visit to those working directly with the homeless. A visit to the Rescue Mission was eye-opening; our host Trinity handed out the hard hats and led us around the Yanonali Street property.

Trinity leading the group around the Rescue Mission's construction zone

The Rescue Mission was in dire need of renovations, having been built in 1987 for the express purpose of housing and training the homeless of Santa Barbara. After over 30 years of unending community service in that location, the Mission sought to bring their facilities up to date, while still maintaining their daily commitment to receive, feed, and shelter anyone coming through the doors. As such, the project is being carried out in phases.

At the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission; from left to right: Joshua,
Peter, Ben, Todd, Alena, Nolan, Ava, Madison, Sam, Pedro, Caleb,
and Mr. Meadth

The students also took the chance to walk down the street and meet with Jon, the CEO of the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Jon showed the group through a typical low-income housing development, describing how successful applicants to the program provide their own "sweat equity" to help meet the cost of a new home. The students were also fascinated by the various technologies used to keep costs down during and after construction: special framing standards, highly insulated rooms, and solar panels.

The team stands with Jon from Habitat for Humanity on their
East Canon Perdido Street location

Back in the classroom, the challenge was issued: design a one-storey building in downtown Santa Barbara for a new Catholic homeless shelter. Constraints were described regarding occupancy, setbacks, and parking. Students were encouraged to consider how the architecture itself might support the intended mission. How can open, plant-filled community spaces promote mental health and serenity? How does a well-designed building give its occupants dignity?

Todd and Ava consider their various design elements, with Todd
on SketchUp and Ava drawing plans by hand

A typical day right now is humming with energy! Ben, Alena, Todd, Caleb, and Josh are hard at work creating CAD models in SketchUp (a free 3D tool used by many architects and product designers). Nolan, Madison, Ava, Peter, and Pedro are drawing scaled floor plans to match the CAD model. Armed with their wits and some architectural rulers, they are carefully tracking the details of corridor widths and parking space sizes. Sam is also building a physical model for his team out of balsa, foamboard, and other various materials. In total, five different designs are in production.

Ben and Nolan working hard to ensure the paper plans match
perfectly with the CAD model; their third teammate Sam (not
pictured) is working on the physical scale model

We're extra grateful to Trinity from the Rescue Mission, who came by class this week to provide feedback to the student teams, one by one. Her advice was invaluable, as one who already knows firsthand the practical implications of the various design elements.

Pedro explains his floor plan to Trinity during class this week

The Providence Engineering Academy is asking the question: how can we bring our skills and knowledge to bear on a world full of problems and in need of the love of Christ? Through meeting with local homeless people, hearing from the ministries that serve them, and through technical training, we hope to ignite a skillful passion for the world around us.

Reach out to Rod Meadth for questions and comments. Don't forget to share the word about our incredible summer camp, which also includes architectural themes: Robot City!