Hello, friends, family, and fellow community members. As the holiday season continues at our vocational high school, the Engineering & Robotics shop sees ongoing work on student projects. This week features updates from two seniors, Euan and Miles. They advanced their respective projects through iteration, testing, and component installation.
Euan focused on improvements to his rover this week, printing and assembling new wheels. He laser-cut new rear legs for the suspension, adding holes for differential attachment to resolve prior instability. The wheel attachment piece was redesigned for the updated motor setup. Prototype wheels were printed and tested, with initial versions showing fit issues due to excess size and slack. Smaller test variations were created and iterated on until proper sizing was achieved. Research into TPU filament led to its selection for better traction and flexibility, and finalized wheels were printed. Assembly and testing of the updated rover are planned for next week.
Miles worked on the golf cart project this week, though productivity was reduced due to illness causing absences and affecting the shop. On Monday, he annotated frames for the YOLO model dataset, completing work on approximately 800 photos with a classmate and selecting about 60% for use after removing duplicates and low-quality images. A new USB webcam with wider field of view was received and tested during a drive, performing adequately with the existing YOLO model but dropping frame rates to around 4 FPS due to higher resolution. Snow conditions caused oversteer and wheel spin during testing. An industrial-grade camera tube donated by Toyota Research Labs was installed on the golf cart roof for potential use in various weather conditions.
We love hearing from our community—drop a comment below with your thoughts or encouragement! Check out more of Euan’s project details at Euan’s Blog, and follow Miles’s progress at Miles’s Blog. Stay tuned for next week’s updates as our students continue to engineer the future, one project at a time
MVTHS Engineering 
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