40 Hours. Three Friends. One Design Problem.
Maryam Asad: Mechanical Engineering, Level 2
Ever since the pandemic hit, everyone has become isolated in one way or another. Watching countless hours of recorded lectures, having minimal face to face conversations, wondering when everything will go back to what it was before, has become the daily norm. Thankfully, the McMaster community is always finding ways for the Fireball Family to stay connected. There are always opportunities being presented, one of the exciting ones being the McMaster CAD Designathon held by our very own McMaster Design League.
Well, you may be wondering “what is that?”, don’t worry I was thinking the same thing when I heard of it in my first year. The McMaster CAD Designathon is an annual event where students band together in teams to propose a solution to a given design problem. The event takes place over the span of a weekend; teams must create a CAD model and present to a panel of judges by the end. Unfortunately, I only heard about the designathon after the event occurred last year but this year, I was determined to keep an eye out and compete with my peers.
Despite being online for the year, MDL hosted the event through Hopin and Discord. This year over 600 participants around the world entered, ranging from students in high school to their fourth year of University. There were 4 design problems presented by the sponsors, each one spread across the scale from creative to technical. They consisted of the drinking/bartending device, hyperloop interior design, work from home robot, and the vaccine machine. My team and I decided to tackle the work from home robots presented by Magna International since it was a nice mixture of technical and creative. Essentially, we were tasked with designing a lab supervision robot that carried out basic tasks while being controlled by the worker from home. Some of those tasks included pushing an equipment emergency stop, using handles to open doors of environmental chambers, moving fixtures and equipment, and being able to self charge.
Aside from the main 4 design problems, there were networking events, guest speakers, workshops, mini design challenges, social media giveaways, and much more. The networking events consisted of Q&A’s with the sponsors (Drunk Engineers, Smith + Anderson, Magna International, and Starfish Medical) and the workshops consisted of CAD rendering, drawings, and animation to name a few. The individual mini challenges consisted of creating a desk knick-knack or a cookie cutter. The cookie cutter winner was obviously the Bernie Sanders cutter; who doesn’t love a Bernie cookie.
40 hours. Three friends. One design problem. With a short deadline and one goal in mind, everyone rushed to brainstorm their ideas for different parts of the robot. The first benchmark in the process was to complete the final sketch of our design. After a few hours, we had selected our top ideas and proceeded with various iterations. In the end, we had opted for an arm controlled by hydraulic pistons with a claw and an audio/visual system attached at the end. The next day, we created our CAD model in Autodesk Inventor. The last morning was for practicing our presentation and completing additional polishing to our CAD prototype.
After 3 sleepless nights, lots of coffee, and many jokes, we finished our design and had presented. Even though my team didn’t end up winning, we were extremely proud of our accomplishments along the way and enjoyed the challenge. It was amazing seeing how everyone had something different to bring to the table and how all those aspects were incorporated into the final design. As well, being able to see how the concepts learned in class were applied to a real-life problem gave me a deeper understanding of them. I’d highly recommend taking part in the CAD Designathon regardless of which program you’re in if you get the chance next year, because the experience is unmatched! If you are looking to get involved next year, here are some tips and tricks I learned this year.
Tip #1: Create a timeline
Since there are only 40 hours to complete the design, time management is key. Start by thinking about all the major milestones through the project such as brainstorming, preliminary design, design optimization, creating CAD of all components, creating the master assembly, preparing a presentation, etc. Dedicate time to each of these tasks throughout the 40 hours and set internal deadlines. Make sure to have official briefings with your team every couple of hours to ensure everyone is on task and help one another if needed. By setting a timeline for your team and yourself, you ensure you do not have to stress at the last minute to submit.
Tip #2: Communication is key
I’m not going to lie to you but making final design decisions can be tough. Sometimes one member wants to incorporate something the other one doesn’t, sometimes ideas conflict, and other times a member doesn’t get the opportunity to present their idea. Be open to all ideas and actively listen to every single member in the group. Somebody’s design choice may have a strategic reasoning that you may have never thought of. Try to create a design that incorporates all ideas; if that isn’t possible, try to reach the middle ground and make sure everyone is on board with the final decision.
Tip #3: Trust your team
We all want to double check every little detail of the design before submitted but this isn’t so realistic in a competition. One of the biggest challenges I had was trying to overlook every single aspect of the design in such a short time. A huge piece of advice is to learn to trust your team. You may want everything to be perfect in your eyes but your team wants the same as you do. By allowing everyone to be the expert on their task, every aspect will in turn be perfect due to the amount of focus on it. Remember trust is a team’s ultimate strength.
Tip #4: Take care of yourself
In all honesty, the competition can get stressful at times. You may get so caught up in what you’re doing that it was 1:00pm one minute and 6:30 pm the next. Be sure to take eating and sleeping breaks so you can perform at your best! What I liked to do was schedule a lunch break that worked for everyone on my team so we could all hold each other accountable.
Tip #5: Have fun!
Although this is a competition, it’s also a chance to make awesome memories. You get the chance to learn through various workshops and guest speakers, work on a project you’re interested in, and grow as a whole with your team. Above all you get to enjoy all the fun moments in the 40 hours with your friends from before or even new ones.
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