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Cub Scouts visit the Dalhousie Mechanical Engineering Department to earn their Computer Programming Badge

Posted by Engineering Communications on April 16, 2015 in News

When Mark Lawrence (P.Eng., Mechanical Engineering Alumnus Class of ’99, and one of the Scouting Leaders – the “Akela” – for the 1st Clayton Park Cub Pack) contacted Dr. Lukas Swan, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Dalhousie University, to ask if the Mechanical Engineering Department could help the Cubs earn their computer programming badge, Dr. Swan immediately thought of Professor Robert Bauer. 

Dr. Bauer teaches Aerodynamics and Control Systems in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Dalhousie and enjoys taking part in STEM outreach events. He and his wife, Georgeta (who teaches Mechatronics and is an Engineer in Residence in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Dalhousie) run an after-school robotics club at Gaetz Brook Junior High School where their son, Maxwell, attends. 

In response to Mark’s request, Dr. Bauer held a “Race Car and Robotics” event for the Cub Pack during the evening of March 2, 2015.  When they arrived on the Sexton Campus, the Cub Pack – consisting of twelve youth between ages eight to ten, and four Scouting leaders – first took a tour of the Mechanical Engineering Department which highlighted the Formula SAE racing car currently being designed and constructed by a team of Dalhousie Engineering students (refer to http://www.dalfsae.com for more details).

Ian Finlayson (left), Team Captain of the Dalhousie Formula SAE Vehicle, showing Ithe race car to the Cub Pack.

After the tour, the Cub Pack gathered in Mechanical Engineering’s Measurements and Controls lab where Dr. Bauer introduced them to myriad robots that he uses as demos in his courses including:

· A “Chess Playing” robot (one of last year’s Mechanical Engineering Senior-Year Design Projects that consists of: sensors on the chess board that can monitor the human’s chess pieces as they are moved, a robotic arm that can move the robot’s chess pieces to play chess, as well as a speech system that enables the robot to talk)

· A two-wheeled self-balancing robot (also designed and built as a Mechanical  Engineering Senior-Year Design Project)

· A Fire Ant hexapod robot that consists of 25 degrees of freedom (joints) which can use its pincers to pick up objects

· A 16” tall humanoid biped robot with 18 degrees of freedom that enjoys doing pushups, hand stands and can sometimes be found playing the fiddle.

After the robot demonstrations, Dr. Bauer introduced the Cub Pack to “Lego Mindstorms EV3” kits where the students built and programmed Lego robotic vehicles that use light sensors and electric motors to follow black lines taped onto the floor.  In a thank you email to Dr. Bauer, Mark wrote “It was GREAT!  We had lots of positive feedback from the kids and parents!”