WEST BETHESDA, Md. –
Student interns made a new tradition official when they raced 3-D printed boats they designed and created themselves in the second annual Additive Manufacturing (AM) Challenge on Aug. 10 at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division headquarters in West Bethesda, Maryland.
For their summer project, the interns, who were assigned to Carderock this summer under the Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program (SEAP), were tasked to research and develop concept designs for an ocean vessel that would be able to filter water waste from the oceans' garbage patches.
Accumulation of garbage, also known as garbage patches, in the oceans are made from the waste and plastics discarded by humans and could cause harm to marine life, according to Danielle Kolber, a naval architect with Carderock's Center for Innovation in Ship Design (CISD).
Interns were split into teams responsible for creating an ocean-cleaning vessel (OCV) that would be capable of operating in sea state five to seven conditions. Using the rhino software design program, the interns were able to experience the full model ship-design process before 3-D printing their final product.
"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."
One team in particular collaborated with the ship design groups to collectively create and advise on potential filtration devices that could be equipped to the models. Some challenges the teams faced were the way their filtration device would interact and affect marine life, especially with smaller organisms like plankton.
"The plankton is the exact same size as the thing we are trying to collect, so we couldn't think of a good way to not catch any plankton," said intern Nicole Popp. "We thought about ways to try to separate it from the plastic and things like that, but there wasn't a good way to do it. We doubt it would have a significant impact on the plankton population since they reproduce a lot every day."
The Optionally Manned Small Waterline Area Twin Hull (SWATH) Collection Vessel created by interns Jack Lange, Natalie Brooks, Anthony Guardado and Carter Junod was a conveyor-belt design to filter the water while collecting the rubbish.
"We went with the SWATH mainly because of how it handles in rough seas. The way we're picking up the plastic is by a conveyor belt, so we wanted to make sure when the conveyor belt is in the water and operating that it's not being banged around by the wave action. We wanted the platform to be stable," said Lange.
According to Guardado, the team's conveyor belt system was designed to be environmentally friendly.
"We have staggered mesh paddles that allow fish to swim through it while catching the waste," Guardado said.
Fellow team member Brooks said their boat was designed with a wave-piercing hull at the front to protect the conveyor belt from any damages. The multihull design is optionally manned and uses mesh buckets to collect the plastic.
A mono-hull model named Pacific Area Cleanup-Manned Vessel, or PAC-Man, was designed by interns Joshua Grammer, Holly Krynicki, Joe Somerville and Clara Hellersund. The team members said they found several naval architecture components to be quite challenging, but they learned about their model's capability through the practice of their calculations in ship stability and resistance.
"Learning those equations and pretty much the math that goes up to naval architecture - that was critical in designing a ship that was feasible," Somerville said.
Similar to the SWATH design, the PAC-Man was designed to be environmentally friendly using a net that would pick up trash in the ocean, but allow marine animals to easily escape, according to Krynicki. The PAC-Man team used the offshore supply ship Bourbon Orca as a reference ship when designing their model.
The teams went on to race their vehicles in the David Taylor Model Basin (DTMB) on Aug. 10 for the AM Challenge.
The obstacle course was won by the SWATH team. 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 had only started two weeks prior 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, Kolber 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 intern summer projects and the AM Challenge remain essentially a pilot program in this early state that will help Carderock's Additive Manufacturing Project Office 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.
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, Michael Britt-Crane, Jovan Brown, Grant Honecker, Hopkins, Jeeven Hugh, Bryan Kessel, Kevin Lin and Sam Pratt.