Student interns made a new tradition official when they raced 3-D printed boats they designed and created themselves for the second annual Additive Manufacturing (AM) Challenge at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division on Aug. 10 in West Bethesda, Maryland.
The students, who were assigned to Carderock this summer under the Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program, made the boats using only AM and a standard kit of parts and raced them in the David Taylor Model Basin (DTMB) as their final projects before leaving Carderock to return to school.
“Each team had to come up with their own design in just a few short weeks,” said Jonathan Hopkins, a mechanical engineer and Carderock’s Additive Manufacturing Project Office lead. “This year, they had to print their own propellers as well, so the students had the opportunity to engage with our hydrodynamics folks to get background knowledge on what to consider when you’re doing a prop design from scratch. That was the added challenge for them this summer and they learned a lot from doing that.”
The obstacle course was won by the Optionally Manned Small Waterline Area Twin Hull Collection Vessel created by Jack Lange, Natalie Brooks, Anthony Guardado and Carter Junod. Although Brooks, a rising senior at Magruder High School in Montgomery County, Maryland, said she wasn’t sure if the team’s boat would work properly come race time, they’re glad it did.
“The motor kept falling off and so did the propellers – we had to solder them back in the last 15 minutes, so it was pretty down to the wire,” said Brooks. “But we didn’t give up!”
Brooks said she chose Carderock for her internship because of its positive reputation in the engineering world. She said her experience here, including the AM Challenge, far exceeded her expectations, giving her the training and hands-on experience she wanted in the basics of naval architecture and how to handle projects like this one.
Like Brooks, Aiden Teter said he was excited for the opportunity to race a craft he made himself in the world-famous DTMB, which he has only seen used before during the International Human-Powered Submarine Races in June. He only started two weeks ago on his craft Clear As Mud, which won the drag race between all the boats despite one of his four propellers falling off.
“I was worried when that happened, and my craft took on a lot of water, but I kept it at a constant speed and got it to the finish,” said Teter, who will begin attending University of Maryland, Baltimore County following his internship and was the lone member of his team, though he still had help from other interns. “I’ve never gotten to 3-D print anything this large before, and then to actually come in first in the drag race was a lot of fun.”
Four teams altogether tested their creations against the other boats, with about twice as many students participating as last year’s AM Challenge, according to Hopkins. Though they all had mechanical issues to troubleshoot, their mentor Danielle Kolber, a naval architect with Carderock’s Center for Innovation in Ship Design who oversaw this year’s group of SEAP interns, said their ability to persevere and be successful speaks highly of the students, especially since they worked collaboratively while competing against each other.
“We typically encourage them, if they have a problem or hit a hiccup in their process to re-navigate and figure out what is causing the issue and then go from there,” Kolber said. “Not only were they able to balance completing this challenge with their other projects for the summer, they were able to adjust when they have problems with their boats, get them working and complete the challenge. They did an excellent job.”
Hopkins said the AM Challenge remains essentially a pilot program in this early state that will help the Additive Manufacturing Project Office (Code 6103) learn what is achievable in a short period of time with AM and what different printers are capable of. He hopes the team can develop a package they can send to schools so they can grow their own programs. Under this plan, those students could then also come to Carderock for testing and further learning from the command’s technical experts, similar to its other science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach programs like SeaGlide, SeaPlane and SeaPerch.
The other teams that completed the AM Challenge were Jane Pennefather, David Ung, Isaac Staats and Nicole Popp piloting the Host and Swarm Ocean Cleaning Vessel and Holly Krynicki, Joe Sommerville, Joshua Grammer and Clara Hellersund piloting the Pacific Area Cleanup-Manned Vessel (PAC-Man) Ocean Cleanup Vessel.
NAVSEA 05T1 Program Manager Danesha Gross, who sponsored both year’s AM Challenges, attended the inaugural event last year and said she was elated to see the students, some of whom had never heard of 3-D printing before the competition, learning creative design via the AM process.
“These are the types of learning environments that should be showcased more at NAVSEA,” Gross said. “I look forward to working more with our STEM teams at the Warfare Centers and discovering different characteristics.
These members of Carderock’s Manufacturing, Knowledge, and Education (MAKE) Lab team also supported the event: Kent Bartlett (Code 7250), Michael Britt-Crane (Code 863), Jovan Brown (Code 8120), Grant Honecker (Code 6102), Hopkins (Code 6103), Jeeven Hugh (Code 8810), Bryan Kessel (Code 6103), Kevin Lin (Code 636) and Sam Pratt (Code 6103).
Read about last year’s AM Challenge and see photos at https://www.dvidshub.net/news/224538/carderock-interns-pilot-navsea-additive-manufacturing-challenge.