ASME Student Design Competition: Bulk Material Transporter

People everywhere have difficulty transporting bulk materials in moderate amounts, particularly when the materials must be carried up stairs or over hills and rough terrain, or when the space available for moving the materials is too small to allow conventional automotive vehicles to be used. The American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) has made the challenge to design a small transporter that could be guided by one person and could deliver moderate amounts of granular materials. The design concept must be demonstrated using using a small working model. The constraints and design testing procedures for the device follow.

To prove the concept, design a prototype system that will be used to transport a granular material (rice, in this case) up and down a stair setup and empty as much rice as possible into a receiving container within a ten-minute time limit. In this ten-minute period, the device can run as many trips as possible, but you can only place the rice in your device in the loading area and can only empty it into the receiving area from the discharge step. To make multiple trips, the device must return to the beginning by way of the steps. The amount of rice per trip is up to the team.