Final Presentation

We capped the semester off by presenting the cooler in the BYU - Idaho Capstone open house. It was a lot of fun to show off the cooler and teach people about the technology we used. There aren't very many people who understand how a thermoelectric module works.

It has been a relief to be done with the cooler although I do miss the excitement of trying to continually improve the concept. We'll see what changes may come about in the future.....

Displaying additional thermoelectric modules and we even filled a small container with dry ice to demonstrate how a thermoelectric module can be used as a thermoelectric generator to produce electricity.
Displaying step-by-step pictures of our cooler building process
The final product...

Golf Ball Launcher

For my mini-capstone class this semester our professor split the class up into 5 groups. Each group had a week to build a golf ball launcher out of a pre-selected rat trap. No modifications to the spring itself were allowed. Other than that stipulation it was free game. With that said, points were awarded for best design, lowest cost, accuracy, and distance.

Our group did excellent on the low cost, accuracy, and design, although we fell a little short of the long distance mark. Our basket consists of the two simple pieces of rod (one of which was the latch for the original trap). The accuracy was achieved by using hooks to measure how far to load to the spring. All in all it was a good design.

It was a fun project which required communication, a bit of innovation, and some well refined skills of trial and error.

** Sorry for the video rotation