Students show off new machines at Sciencenter demo day

A laundry grabber, a snowflake maker and a volleyball launcher were just some of the projects on display May 9 at the Sciencenter in Ithaca, which were demonstrated by the Cornell students who made them.

Visitors to the Ithaca museum learned all about the new machines from students in the spring Introduction to Rapid Prototyping and Physical Computing (INFO 4320) course. Students in the class learned skills such as laser cutting, 3D printing and microcontroller programming to design and build a robotic prototype for a machine of their choice.

"It's very exciting to see the students' new design, coding and fabrication skills come together into a working project, and for them to share those efforts with the community," said François Guimbretière, professor of information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

Teams from previous years have created toys, medical assistants and new musical instruments.

Alisa Castillo '26, an information science major, worked with her three-person team to create a string art machine. A round wooden plate rimmed with nails rotates on a lazy susan and a servo motor moves a threaded needle back and forth to catch the string on the right pins. A tension unit keeps the string taut.

For the museum demo, Castillo also created a smaller disc with 15 pins that visitors could string by hand, to better understand how the automated machine works.

"It was a really fun and nice way to connect with our community," Castillo said.

Kent Yoest '27, an information science major, found himself on a team with three volleyball players, who together developed a volleyball serving machine.

"The launcher enables someone to practice by themselves, and helps coaching staff be able to be more attentive to the players instead of having to operate the machine," Yoest said.

The machine's base can rotate and tilt to aim the ball, and a triangular firing mechanism uses three wheels to launch the ball. A crate-like structure holds and loads the ball once it's ready for launch.

"When we tested it outside, it served the ball quite well, but we did limit the power while inside the Sciencenter for the safety of the kids," he said.

Yoest, who grew up in Central New York, often visited the Sciencenter as a child to play with the hands-on exhibits. He said he was glad to have the opportunity to interact with the visitors and he even 3D printed smaller versions of the components inside the launcher, so that kids could handle and manipulate them.

"It's always really nice, when you're passionate and you've enjoyed building something, to be able to showcase the result of your efforts and to share that experience with other people," he said.

Patricia Waldron is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.