Engineering Design & Visual Communication MECH2401

Warman competition at UWA

http://www.mech.uwa.edu.au/unit/MECH2401/warman/

UWA Warman contact person:

Dr Nathan Scott, ph (08) 6488 3761, nscott@mech.uwa.edu.au

Introduction

The Warman competition is an annual event organised centrally for Australia and New Zealand. Engineering students are asked to design and build a device to achieve a specified goal. In past years students have built machines to

Drive the longest distance using only the energy in a rubber band
Move a full beer can from the top of a tower to a precise point several meters away
Put a ping-pong ball into an upright tube several meters from the starting point
Jump from one table to another

The required task is specified in minute detail and there is a published scoring strategy.

Students work in groups to design, build and test their entries in the competition. It is great fun and students learn many valuable lessons about design, for example that one's first idea is not necessarily the best solution, and that simplicity is usually the key to success. The students who produce the highest-scoring device at UWA will "win" a free trip to the National heats in the Eastern States, in September or October, which is seriously cool and looks very good on a resume.

The Warman competition has been held since 1988. The UWA team has won three times:

in 1993, jointly with Curtin University
in 2002
in 2003

I hope some of you will win again this year.

The Rules

The Institution of Engineers web site has all the official rules and these will be used in our local competition:

http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/acme/studentactivities/warman/index.html

Visit the site regularly to make sure you know all the rules of the competition. Note that there is usually a great deal of discussion about the meaning of the competition rules and as a result there are regular bulletins from the national Warman organisers giving "interpretations". I will try to keep the class informed about these extra bulletins but - just as in professional life - there is no substitute for keeping your eyes open.

There are some extra rules that will apply only to our local competition and which exist to make the trials run more smoothly and to help future students.

The UWA competition

Students form their own project groups of two, three or four members for the Warman project. It is strongly recommended that all groups have four members and groups of 5 or more will not be allowed. Group members should exchange telephone numbers and email addresses, and should arrange to meet regularly. I will help you find appropriate group members in the first lecture.

Groups will be asked to register in the first lecture and will be assigned a number by lottery. Groups with even numbers have a different timetable than groups with odd numbers. See the timetable for details. This has been done to prevent a crowding problem which otherwise would certainly occur in rm 1.57.

Each group will demonstrate their device at least four times during the semester, on four Thursday afternoons in rm 1.57. The Warman score for these trials will be calculated exactly as specified by the Warman competition rules and this score will be turned into a unit mark contribution by direct scaling. By having so many checks on device performance we hope to encourage

continual effort and project planning - rather than a mad overnight effort right at the end;
continual innovation and critical development of the design - rather than a one shot wonder
evaluation of the work of all groups as we go along. Secrets cannot be kept for long!
an emphasis on reliablility as well as high-level performance. The thing has got to work every time. Talk is cheap.

The winner of the UWA competition - our representative in Sydney

Another function of the trials is to choose who will represent UWA at the National Finals. Here is how that will work. The groups who have the top 12 accumulated scores from the 4 non-public trials will be invited to demonstrate their devices at the public finals.

If no group achieves a score of 100% at the public finals, the winner will not be declared. Additional non-public trials will be scheduled until some group achieves a score of 100%.
If only one group achieves a score of 100% at the public finals, that group will be deemed the UWA winner. Note that the accumulated Warman Score is in this case will not be important.
If more than one group achieves 100% at the public finals, the group with the highest accumulated Warman Score will be declared the winner.

I reserve the right to vary this selection process as the need arises. My goal is to ensure that whoever goes to Sydney to represent UWA is clearly our best.

The UWA public finals will be held

in ELT1

From 3pm to 5pm

on Friday 30 May 2008

Workshop facilities

Room 1.57 has benches and bench vices, and a limited amount of storage space under the benches, but not much else.

Room G27 is a proper workshop with some very useful tools. However it will only be open when supervision is available (for safety reasons mainly). A timetable for supervised access to G27 will be published early in the semester.

Construction materials

This year a basic Warman Kit will be provided to all groups. I will use the kit contents in lectures to show some useful design ideas. You will need to augment the kit by scrounging junk and buying a few tools and materials. Some advice about scrounging and buying is provided here.

Extra rules for our UWA competition

Safety check

Devices will be subject to a pre-run safety check. If a device is deemed unsafe it will not be allowed to run and its Warman score for that run will be an automatic zero. No arguments will be entered into. If you have doubts about the safety of something you are doing, seek a ruling from Nathan about it well before you present it in a competition.

It is understood that a Warman device must store a small amount of energy in the form of a compressed spring, compressed air or chemical energy in a battery. The presence of stored energy in any form implies that there is a non-zero risk that the device could move and injure someone. The question, therefore, becomes one of control. Use this checklist on your device:

Can the machine fire unexpectedly at any time, for example while carrying it into the venue or while loading it?
Does the machine have a safety lock or catch so that it is clearly disabled until it is time to fire?
Does the machine have the potential to break while firing, in such a way that debris is thrown in a random direction at high velocity?

Start volume

Devices must fit within the required starting volume at the start instant, without assistance or support. This means that you can't use parts of your body to sort of cram the device into the start volume. Also the template(s) we use to check the start volume boundary mustn't support the device or push it into the boundary. The device in the start volume has to actually be slightly undersize and not sproinging out all over the place. My level of tolerance for this sort of thing will be low and may lead to zero scores being applied. Your "start action" will have to be designed accordingly. It must be possible to "load" your device and then leave it in the loaded condition within the start volume without anybody holding on to any part of it. Then of course you will set it going somehow e.g. by cutting a string or flipping a latch open.

Setup time

Your group will indicate readyness to set up, and I will then start a stopwatch. If you aren't ready to "fire" by the end of the allowed setup time, the score for that run will be an automatic zero - no exceptions. Deal with this at the design stage: design the device AND the sequence for loading it (of course!). Then PRACTICE many times. Practice with various scenarios such as "critical group member X off sick". Engineers have to think about what might go wrong and plan accordingly.

Cleaning up the competition site

The group who are ranked 7 in each of our trials will be responsible for cleaning the competition site. Failure to do so to a satisfactory standard will lead to a revision of the competition mark for all group members in a strong downward direction. This rule exists so that there is definitely someone dobbed in to clean up and it is definitely not me.

Safety and penalties for not wearing safety glasses

In 2003 a student narrowly escaped eye injury when a device went off unexpectedly. That student was at UWA and the horror of that moment is something I never want to experience again.

Go to the Mechanical Engineering Office to collect your free pair of safety glasses. Only one free pair is available. If you need another pair it is possible that you can buy one from the Office. Or else buy from the usual hardware stores. When you are not using them, keep your safety glasses in a soft cloth bag so that they will not get scratched.

Any student seen working on or near a Warman device, anywhere on campus, and not wearing properly fitted safe safety glasses, will receive an on-the-spot fine of 1% ENDP2401 course credit. Three such offenses will lead to disciplinary action under UWA statute 17. Eyes are just too precious and too delicate to take chances with.

You must wear safety glasses even if you already wear glasses. This is a standard safety rule in industry and it exists because a flying object can enter the eye from the side, where normal eyeglasses are usually open. I expect wearers of glasses to take responsibility for their own eye protection seriously. This means if the safety glasses don't fit properly over your glasses, you must immediately seek some better glasses or some solution to the problem e.g. from a hardware store. Safety glasses that are sort of jammed on your head but have big gaps around them won't necessarily protect you. The safety glass penalty will apply even if you are wearing safety glasses, if in my view they are not protecting your eyes adequately. Note that it is possible to buy "side guards" for regular glasses and these can be as effective as true safety glasses. Please show me these before you start using them.

Sunglasses are generally speaking NOT safety glasses (although there are special "safety" sunglasses of course).

The Visual Diary: a work in four parts

As employees of an engineering company you will be required to provide regular reports to management as well as much other documentation (e.g. for your colleagues and those who take over the work when you are done). Our aim in requiring a Visual Diary is to help you get better at writing such reports, and to see how to apply all the great Visual Communication skills learned in tutorials.

Requirements of all Visual Diary submissions (= advice about how to get the best mark)

Create material for your Visual Diary any time you work on your Device, and file it as you go. Don't build for weeks and then try to remember what you did - write and draw as you go.
Each page of your Visual Diary should have a heading which explains what it is and how it fits into the overall design reasoning. For example if the page is about cars with three wheels, write "Car/three wheels" at the top.
Each page of your Visual Diary must be annotated to show which group members contributed to it. If there was a single author, just write the author's name. If one person did one-third of the work on the page and another did two-thirds, write this down.
Acknowledge ideas and input from other people e.g. students in other groups, staff, your family and so on. Never pass off someone else's idea as your own - this is plagiarism and will not be tolerated. And it's very rude to whoever helped you.
It should be obvious, but I will say anyway: the Visual Diary should be VISUAL. If you find yourself writing more than a few lines of text in one place, you are doing it wrong, draw something instead. Few words, lots of great pictures that demonstrate that you have been listening in tutorials. Please.
If you do write anything, make sure the grammar, spelling and lettering are all reasonably good. Engineers must take communication in all forms very seriously because life and limb can depend on the clarity of something you write or draw.
Be kind to the readers of your Diary. Try to think about what they need in order to understand what you have been doing. This is perhaps the central skill in all writing and is unfortunately often not achieved. The Diary is not for YOU, it is for Someone Else who does not know what is in your head.

The Diary is to be submitted in four parts, one at each Trial. The required contents of each part are given below:

Submission 1, at your first trials

Freehand visualizations of design concepts for the competition - how could you solve the problem? Include some notes on each page to explain the flow of your reasoning - why did you develop certain ideas and not others? What are the issues in the design, the problems you saw and tried to overcome? CAD drawings are not to be submitted at this stage.

Submission 2, at Trial 2

A complete set of drawings for the design solution presented at Trial 2 are required, in sufficient detail that your device could be reproduced from the drawings. CAD drawings may form part of this submission but judge carefully whether CAD is the best tool to use. Exploded views, wiring diagrams, photographs, sectional views, detail views, state diagrams are all encouraged - whatever will best show how the thing works. If you wish to show how a mechanism works, show the mechanism in several states, on separate drawings or on the same drawing but in a different line style.

Submission 3, at Trial 3

A set of CAD or freehand drawings of either (a) the drive train of your Trial 3 solution or (b) whatever distinguishes your Trial 3 solution from your Trial 2 solution is required. CAD may be used.

Submission 4, at Trial 4

Document the control systems and strategy of your final solution to the problem. If the physical form of your solution has changed greatly since Trials 2 and 3, document the new form of your solution in a helpful way. CAD must be used as part of this submission.

Resource material

The official rules, of course.

Click here for a list of common materials and components, with suggestions about where you might find them.

Here is some advice from students who did the Warman project in 2003.

Here is some advice from students who did the Warman project in 2006.

Here is some advice from students who did the Warman project in 2007.

Here is some advice from students who did the Warman project in 2008.

Here is some advice about working in a group. You should definitely read this if you feel your group is not functioning properly.

The test area

A table that matches the Warman design specification will be erected in room 1.57.

UWA team wins Warman National Final 2002!

UWA team wins Warman National Final 2003!

Results 2008 - please check

I publish these spreadsheets so that you may check them for errors. If anything does not seem right to you - e.g. if I have you in the wrong group!! - please send a concise email with corrections.

Dr Nathan Scott / nscott@mech.uwa.edu.au