strojLAB Challenge: How to get the ping pong ball into the center of the target?

Limited resources, limited time – those were the main variables that sparked creativity among technical high school students during the strojLAB Challenge engineering challenge. The first edition of this hackathon for high schoolers took place in early June in the strojLAB open workshop at the Institute of Machine and Industrial Design, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Brno University of Technology. The winning team, Mechaaaanici, succeeded in the challenge of transporting a ping pong ball to the center of a target.

The first edition of the strojLAB Challenge took place at FME. | Author: Jan Prokopius

“The inspiration for the very first strojLAB Challenge came from the story of the NASA team who, under time and resource constraints, had to design a solution for connecting filtration components in Apollo 13. Similarly, our participants had only a box of parts and six hours to design their device,” explained main organizer David Škaroupka. To build a vehicle with a mechanism that releases a ball at the right moment, or a machine that launches the ball with just the right speed to hit the center? There were many strategies students decided to try, and the organizers praised all eight teams for their ability to collaborate, search for information, and improvise.

Eight high school teams participated in the competition. | Author: Jan Prokopius

Although mentors from the Institute of Machine and Industrial Design encouraged continuous testing, some teams didn’t manage a trial run before the final presentation. “Unfortunately, this negatively affected the results of some promising concepts. One of the skills we aim to strengthen through strojLAB is iterative prototyping – testing design limits in the real world,” Škaroupka added.

The strojLAB Challenge was part of the pilot run of the international DiSTT project, in which the Institute is working on new educational approaches. “Our goal is to deepen collaboration with other educational institutions – in this case Fab Lab Brno – as well as with industry partners. We were pleased to welcome Jiří Průša from PRUSA RESEARCH, who spoke to the students,” Škaroupka concluded. The winning team Mechaanici received tickets to the international FAB25 maker meeting, held for the first time in the Czech Republic.

The aim is to intensify cooperation with secondary schools and partners. | Author: Jan Prokopius

An accompanying program was also prepared for teachers. First, they met with the Vice-Dean for Bachelor's Studies Jana Hoderová, who presented the Partner School program. Afterwards, they toured selected laboratories at the Institute of Machine and Industrial Design. In the afternoon, the teachers joined their students and watched them compete.

Source: Faculty of Mechanical Engineering

The competition was held as part of the international DiSTT project, funded by the European Union under the Interreg Central Europe programme.