Engineering students Steffen Burkhardt, Elijah Symeslatini, Dominick Scalzo, Bee Williams, and Ashleigh Woodcock’s creation is on display in Alfred
A group of seven Alfred State senior engineering students, Nehemiah Abelard-Johnson, Steffen Burkhardt, Joshua Mekeel, Dominick Scalzo, Elijah Symeslatini, Bee Williams, and Ashleigh Woodcock designed a Marble Run Machine that will be displayed on the ground floor of the Student Leadership Center.
Burkhardt described the project. “The Marble Run Project is a senior engineering project used to demonstrate the abilities of engineering seniors. The idea is that incoming freshmen will come in and see the ability of what the school can do.”
The Rube Goldberg machine has one hundred marbles that continuously loop around a track that includes Alfred State landmarks. The group chose to include the college’s iconic bell tower, with bell tolls on the hour and half hour, Pioneer Stadium, and the Theta Gamma House (the University Police Building). The machine also includes the Alfred State “A” as a plinko board, LED lighting, and Big Blue images in multiple spots.
“Basically, every plastic part in the entire machine is 3D printed,” commented Scalzo. “We had about eight 3D printers running at once, at various times. We printed about everything you can see, all the track clips, all the splitters, Big Blue, the UP house, the football field, everything.”
Symeslatini enjoyed seeing it all come together. “It is just such a fun thing to look at when it is running. The sounds and the lights, it all comes together, and is very satisfying.”
The students along with Professors Alex Bailey and Aric Bryant started the process with a concept during the fall semester. The team tied for first in the senior project poster presentation, judged by members of the Advisory Committee and professors, at the end of the semester,
“A lot of our fall semester was planning,” added Williams. “It was a lot of jotting down ideas on paper to start with and then going on modeling software and figuring out the logistics of different parts. Most of the fall was just actually making sure that everything that we were planning to do was feasible and could be physically done.”
The spring semester featured gathering all the materials and building all the components of the machine.
“My favorite part about this project is that we got to see the machine from absolutely nothing to being able to put every piece together and seeing the whole thing come together,” commented Woodcock. “We were not sure if we were able to do it, but we managed to pull it off.”
The group is quick to add that they did not work on the project along as they benefited from the assistance of underclassmen and professors.
Standing right next to the machine, Burkhardt was proud of what they were able to do with this project. “I feel like we have really shown what you can accomplish within the set bounds and design criteria that we were given for senior projects. I really hope to come back one day and see even greater future senior projects.”
The Marble Run Machine was one of three senior projects designed and presented by engineering students. A group worked on a Baja Car and another group worked on a evacuated tube solar water heater project.
The machine is scheduled to be running daily from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. A video showing the process of the project will be located right next to the machine soon.
