Abstract
The goal of engineering is to design products that better the quality of life for communities and cultures that are impacted by engineering design choices. The ASME Robotic Design Challenge Competition provides students with a thorough list of constraints and goals for a robotic system to achieve. This year, teams designed a rover device that could perform four capabilities. The sociotechnical paper associated with this project investigates the relationship over time between the University of Virginia and the greater Charlottesville community. The purpose of this paper was to identify the causation of tension over time and the actions taken to fix the relationship. The technical project and sociotechnical paper are connected through the overarching principle that engineering is meant to better society. Both the technical and sociotechnical portions focus on teaching the value of responsible engineering design choices through intended outcomes (showcased by technologically designed according to specific goals) and unintended outcomes (showcased by design choices that unintentionally cause barriers between social groups).
The technical Capstone project was broken down prior to integration into four different subsystems: grabbing trash/recycling bins, lifting the bins to empty the contents, sorting the contents, and dumping the sorted contents into their appropriate receptacles. The methods applied were to break each task into a component, research requirements, develop in parallel, and then integrate. The project contributes towards a short term solution given constraints by the ASME competition and a long term solution to have rovers that can effectively act as a waste collector service which sorts recyclables, thus protecting the planet from unnecessary waste.
The overall conclusions of this technical project were that designing a rover to meet a long list of requirements is possible but challenging on a four inch by six inch scale. The most informative part of this project was learning how to prioritize design choices. Some initial requirements from ASME were neglected in the end due to their complexity for a rover of this scale. These mirror real life choices that engineers have to make regarding designs of autonomous vehicles that have to maneuver tight spaces and turns on a road. The research conclusions depict that waste management is a prevalent challenge, as the pounds/person of garbage is increasing over time (US EPA, 2017).
The sociotechnical portion of this portfolio investigates how strained relationships between the University of Virginia and Charlottesville area were founded and continue to be perpetrated over time. This is a significant question because the university is cultivating engineers whose goal is to better society, and in order to do so, one must contextualize the situation of the society. This research applies Actor Network Theory in order to identify the actors perpetuating tension between the university and Charlottesville and recognize efforts to rectify the division.
Through Actor Network Theory, the main actors were characterized as physical barriers, digital barriers, and economic barriers, all of which contributed to the tension felt between community members and participants of the university. These barriers have morphed over time, and the division between people has been consistent dating back to the founding of the university. These barriers are known to university and community members, and there have been continuous efforts such as the 2030 Plan implemented by former President Jim Ryan which work to specifically make amends.
