ASME Student Design Challenge; The Impact of Lithium Batteries on the Lives of Modern Nomads 5 views

My technical project is the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) competition project for 2026. For this competition, teams must design and build a remote controlled device that can traverse a model city and pick up waste. Then, the device must take the collected waste, sort it, and place it into the correct receptacles (trash vs recycling). The first round of the competition is speed based, so our goal is to pick up as much waste as we can and bring it to one conglomerate receptacle. For this second round, the goal is not only to collect the most waste in the provided time, but to also sort accurately and place into the corresponding receptacles. Points will be taken off for driving violations, any interference with the other team, and any incorrectly sorted/disposed of waste. Furthermore, for this project, in order to test the device, we were also tasked with designing and building a model city, akin to what could be found in the competition. My STS Project explores modern “Vanlife,” investigates the lives of modern nomads in the U.S., and describes how the integration of lithium batteries has improved their way of life compared to the previous nomads from the Hippie Movement of the 1960-70s. I have broken down this overarching topic into the following sub questions to fully explore this topic and focus on the impact of Lithium Batteries on the lives of modern nomads: 1) How does the modern nomadic lifestyle compare to that of the Hippie Movement in the 1960’s & 70’s. How have lithium batteries changed the social norms, quality of life, and expectations within this demographic? 2) How has the introduction of lithium batteries into unconventional housing solutions allowed a younger generation of adults to manage housing, home ownership and rising costs in the housing market? The primary connection between my technical and STS projects is the use of lithium batteries as a remote power source. For our technical project, the ASME competition, one of the requirements is to power the remote-controlled device using dry cell, rechargeable batteries. For our final design, we used a Milwaukee M12 Lithium battery, chosen for its compact size while still providing the voltage and amperage required for our device. This is a small-scale example of how lithium batteries are improving the world of energy storage, allowing for more freedom of movement and continuous connection.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

Vanlife; Lithium Battery; Modern Nomad

English

2026-05-07