Sustainable Design And Engineering: How To Build And Race A Kinetic Sculpture

How do a group of students design, build and race a bicycle powered work of art that can float, go through sand and mud, and survive 15 miles of Baltimore roads? It all starts with the plan and a great design. This workshop will engage creative students in building the model prototype and challenge them to work as a group to propose the kinetic sculpture design for UMBC students to build during the Fall 2022 semester. The UMBC Kinetic Sculpture Team led by professor Steve McAlpine, has won a grand prize and two design awards over the past five years, participating in races in Baltimore, Maryland and Lowell, Massachusetts. Students will be invited on the final day to inspect and test drive both UMBC kinetic sculptures, as well as, to share, test and race the models they have built.

In this course students will learn about:
- Sustainable Design: Upcycling and why it's important; finding and joining recycled materials that will survive the rigors of the Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture race.
- Building Prototypes: The difference between prototypes and models; the importance of testing and learning from a trial and error process.
- Engineering Kinetic Sculptures: Structural stability, impact of vibration, efficiency, steering, and water displacement.
- Environmental Science: Ecosystems, "waste=food", biosphere meets techno-sphere.
- Group Design Process: Generating ideas, sorting out disagreements, and working towards innovative solutions.

This class will also share videos and photos from the race and design process in previous years to help students understand the limitless scope of what is possible from a design perspective.

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