I was unable to attend class this week due to sickness, but I have been working with my team, Evinco , to ensure that we are able to create a proper prototype once the Make-a-thon comes. This week, my team had the pleasure to meet with an old materials science professor of mine, Matthew Goodman. He taught my introduction to MSE course, in which I learned about the properties of a variety of materials. That being said, some of my former classmates and I thought speaking with him about our projects and potential materials we could use to create the best functioning prototype for our client.
When discussing our project with Professor Goodman, he had a multitude of ideas that we had yet to come upon throughout our research. The options he mentioned were very helpful, but he told us to focus on materials’ properties. Professor Goodman stated that we should look for a material with a high coefficient of friction when wet, to ensure that the material would withstand the rain throughout a race. An example of some coefficients of frictions are portrayed in the table below.
Professor Goodman said utilizing the same material on the glove and the handrail could be helpful because when the materials press up against one another, they “want” to stick to material that is the same as itself. He recommended running short tests on the subjects when both dry and wet to help us get an idea of materials that may be better in multiple conditions. It was suggested that we do research on certain objects that are utilized for their stickiness or water resistance so we can potentially reuse this material on our handrail. A few objects mentioned were goalie gloves, bath mats (which we had previously researched), RainEx for windshields and undercoating which is used for lining steel. Although they currently are utilized for completely different reasons, we believe that they could be tested to help benefit the racers. Hopefully we will be able to test out these ideas before the Make-a-thon so we can come prepared with our idea and prototype.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Gies College of Business
Hi Elisa,
I’m glad that both of our groups were able to talk to Dr. Goodman this week! I thought that he brought up some very good points about the material properties we needed for our prototype design and the best materials to achieve these properties. I also appreciated that he gave us materials that are cheap and found in everyday items instead of expensive and rare composites.