The group heard presentations from two groups of CSU-Pueblo engineering students (now graduates) and from a student from PSAS.
The first group (Keiffer Butler, Wyatt Farris, Daniel Hoyle-Aguon) described and showed videos of their H.E.R.M.Es Firefighting Drone. Given coordinates for a suspected fire, the drone flies to that location, hovers, searches for the fire, then flies above thefire, drops a fire suppressant ball from a trap door, flies back to its starting location, and lands. A microcontroller is at the center of the design, which uses a commercial drone with an added 3D printed trap door component designed by the students. It also uses an OAK-D AI integrated camera and a neural network trained to recognize a fire. Thermal sensors were considered, but they don’t have the necessary range and are too costly.
The second group (Au’lexandria Goodwin, Kelcie Nagler, Megan Nelms) described and showed videos of their Counterfeit Metal Sensor. The provision of metals by suppliers that do not meet specifications is a serious problem for many companies. This robotic system can accurately and consistently test material, currently limited to grades of aluminum, using eddy current sorting. The methods can be extended to nonferrous metals.
CSU-Pueblo Engineering Professor Neb Jaksic described the requirements for the year-long projects, including the requirement to acquire and use knowledge they hadn’t been taught in order to demonstrate life-long learning.
Meral Sarper, STEAM teacher at PSAS, provided a video (https://youtu.be/6bytzjQJNtU?t=4635) of a presentation by PSAS student Willow Stephenson. Meral commented: “”I am very proud of all my students, especially Willow Stephenson who was a State Finalist for STEM Fair as well as for the Pueblo Entrepreneurship Competition! Here is her presentation last month at the PEC.” The Pueblo Makes group was impressed by Willow’s ability to present her ideas and answer questions.
On June 3 at 7 pm Rocky Mountain PBS will air a one hour documentary on the Pueblo flood.
On June 5, from 9am-1pm, the Downtown Association will hold a Pueblo Levee Walk to celebrate the opening of a new pedestrian bridge. See https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pueblo-levee-walk-tickets-154466448305 for tickets.
Pueblo Makes meets the third Tuesday of each month, currently by zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84158525191?pwd=K1lsQWRSQy83Q1NLVXZxQzlBOUw2Zz09 The next meeting is 15 June 2021. Email janemfraserphd@gmail.com to be added to the email list or for more information