January 30, 2008

Tokyo (JAPAN)

Eureka! Our Bento Disposal Machine Works... (Well, sort of)

For the past four months I have been working with a group of eight other engineering students to design a bento disposal machine. (Click here to see what the bento box I had for lunch today looks like. Basically, bento lunches are what 95% of the population eats at lunch time, and should be introduced in America as a far healthier alternative to fast food.) I was able to join this project back in September through the help of Okuma sensei, the head of my research laboratory, and the man who also leads the Control and Systems department at Tokyo Tech.

Anyway, our work finally came to fruition today when we presented our machine to the engineers from industry who will ultimately decide whether or not to sponsor our design. It was a terrific experience for me because my team members were all Japanese, and it was never easy communicating our ideas or coordinating our efforts - working styles are decidedly different (a subject on which I will write more next week.)

Below are some photos showing the basic way in which the machine operates...

Below is video from our attempted demonstration. This is where the "Well, sort of" comment comes into play: we could not get the slicing mechanism to work continuously as the lever arm was probably designed longer than it should have been - an easy adjustment to make in the future. Otherwise, everything you see (other than the power supply) was machined and assembled by us. For anyone who has ever done electrical work or worked with tolerances, you will understand that making this machine from scratch in a matter of months is a far bigger achievement than one might imagine.

I wish I could translate everything being said, but my Japanese is poor, and the demonstration obviously had to be done in Japanese - my role was leading the presentation. Nevertheless, most of the comments probably went something like, "This ought to do it... S***!"