Stryker Engineering Challenge

The 2016 Stryker Engineering Challenge took place from March 31 to April 1. Seven teams participated: two from Notre Dame, two from University of Michigan, one from Purdue, one from Western Michigan University, and one from the Michigan Colleges Alliance.

The Challenge was to design a remotely controlled vehicle that could pick up victims (small Lego people) using a magnet. The situation was a simulated gas leak in downtown Kalamazoo. There were three separate areas to pick up victims from. The attached course picture shows the teams’ pit areas closest to the camera and a park on the right, a hospital area in the middle, and downtown stores area on the left. Each area was accessible only through an obstacle path. Some victims were laying on the ground, others were high up on roofs while others again were hidden behind doors only opened in response to a prearranged signal (either blinking LED or a sound signal at the appropriate frequency, or by pressing a switch). Points were awarded for victims brought back to the pit area by the vehicle. If the vehicle broke down it could be brought back to the pit area for repair by the Stryker mentor, but no points were awarded for victims on the vehicle at that time. Points per victim were awarded according to the difficulty in accessing them.

The competition consisted of two 20 minute halves with a 20 minute half time.

The pit areas were chosen by each team according to their placement in three technical challenges. Challenge one was just prior to starting the vehicle design at 7pm Thursday evening. Challenge took place around 9pm on Thursday evening, while challenge three took place early Friday morning. Each challenge consisted of three questions worth one point each, and the first team to answer correctly got the point. There was one answer per team and a wrong answer resulted in a negative point.

The MCA team placed fourth overall, showing once again that our students compare favorably with the larger engineering programs in our area.

The MCA team consisted of:  Patryk Czajkowski of Andrews University, Shurio Maitra of Calvin College, Ross Newland of Hope College, and Melisa Ramirez of the University of Detroit Mercy. 

The MCA team and their Stryker daytime mentor are seen in the above team picture.

MCA placed fourth in the technical challenge and forth in the overall competition.
Notre Dame’s teams and Western Michigan took the first three positions. University of Michigan’s teams placed fifth and sixth, while Purdue placed 7th.

By:  Gunnar Lovhiden, PhD