Throughout all these projects, the times when we learned the most was when we tried to take something on paper and make it a reality, because it is always more difficult than you expect. The other times you learn the most is when the competition stakes are high, and your robot fails in a spectacular way that you were not prepared for. Each of these setbacks were vital learning moments that allowed us to grow our design knowledge and prevent similar issues from happening in the next design.
Upon entering the industry in 2018 I was curious to see what kinds of building experience these engineering students were getting, and was surprised to find very few opportunities and few independent examples of similar projects and learning experiences. We conducted a survey that found that Mechanical Engineering students are the largest group and that nearly zero students were participating in projects outside of the industry. For years I rattled the idea of a competition that would be based on Ride Engineering, as opposed to design like most existing competitions. With the world-wide disruption of Covid I found myself locked in my apartment with no job all summer, and decided to start creating the architecture that would become the Ride Engineering Competition!
The challenge of the Ride Engineering Competition is to perform a full design cycle of a theme park ride for riders that are approximately 1/50th of human scale. Teams are using industry practices including Project Charters, Design Reviews, Risk Assessments, and ASTM Compliance Analysis. Their ultimate goal is the fabrication and automatic operation of the Ride for 8 continuous hours during the competition event.
Teams will receive points for three major deliverables:
- a Systems Engineering Report that details the engineering decisions and actions throughout the project
- a Functional Physical Model of the attraction
- and a team score for Final Presentation and Outreach
Teams may also receive large point deductions for the relative cost of their ride compared to their competition.
The Competition culminates in a 1 1/2-day Virtual event featuring an 8-hour window in which all Ride Models must run continuously. During this time Teams will Service their rides whenever needed. Judges will award points based on the implementation of the ride and the team’s service preparedness, and teams will present their Ride and Engineering Process in a presentation.
With the incredible help of students within the Theme Park Engineering Group at Iowa State University and the partnership with the IGNITE Innovation Showcase, we have built a final event to feature all of the incredible work these student teams have done over the last 6 months, with 6 functioning Ride Models and 4 additional Concepts! We have 80 students competing in this year’s competition and 22 Industry Professional Judges from all over the attractions industry. We have also prepared several hours of sponsored content including exclusive interviews with prominent Roller Coaster Modelers, Tech Talks from Industry Professionals, and Q&A panels from some of our Industry Professional Judges!
C101: This sounds amazing! Where can interested individuals go to watch the live stream?
Charlie: You can watch the stream live on April 17th from 8am-8pm CST from our website:
https://tpeg.stuorg.iastate.edu/ride-engineering-competition/
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