Reverse engineering helps students STEAM forward
Celebrating their remote control lawn mower project at Triway Middle School are student Jeremy Strouse, front, teacher Steve Miller, back left, students Daniel Holmes and Gage Kota, and teacher Will Root. Miller and Root led the project as part of the reverse engineering class, but the students did all the computer coding to operate the tractor by remote control through an app on their phones.
At first glance it appears a riderless lawn tractor is running out of control in the Triway Middle School yard.
A second look reveals the mower is being steered through remote control, much to the excitement of the four students who engineered it and the teachers who facilitated it.
Eighth-graders Daniel Holmes, Gage Kota, Gavin Duncan and Jeremy Strouse met the challenge from their reverse engineering teachers Steve Miller and Will Root to make the tractor controllable with their phones.
“They took it and ran with it,” said Root, who supplied the old Wheel Horse Tractor for the students to rebuild.
First, the students overhauled the engine and in three weeks had it running like new. Gifted with donated parts, the students began to work on controlling the lawn tractor’s steering and speed.
“We needed something to control the steering,” Root said, so he visited Kevin Hanna at Hanna’s Auto Wrecking in Glenmont and found a 2006 Chevy Equinox. Hanna offered to donate the electronic steering assist unit off the car, saying, “It’s for the kids. Take it.”
In class the students learned how a small coded circuit board called the Arduino could control the 12-volt electric assist motor. Jeremy Taylor, an engineer with Cummins Diesel, assisted in this part of the project by coming to the school and advising the students on how to wire it.
Next, the students worked on how to control the speed of the tractor, which is powered by a hydrostatic pump. A linear actuator was added to move the forward and reverse lever on the tractor. The students figured out how to make this work from their phones using their coding skills.
“I was just a bystander at that point,” Root said.
Same with Miller, whose main role at this point was making sure the students had the parts they needed. The teachers understood the mechanical portion of the project, he said, but controlling the mower with a phone was all student-driven.
Then the students began showing off, Miller said. “I told them to add a horn and lights, and they did.”
The class took the mower out of the school’s STEAM Lab and gave it a test run a couple weeks before school let out. They ran it around cones and in and out of the school.
“There are a few things that need to be tweaked, but it works,” Miller said.
Holmes, who would like to work as an electrical engineer someday, said he appreciated the project because it was a unique learning experience.
Holmes’ father Aaron, a Schaeffler engineer, provided technical support. He and Daniel are building a car from scratch at home.
Kota was able to put his coding skills to work. “I’m good at coding,” he said. He has been honing those skills since elementary school. He hopes to become a software engineer.
Strouse would like to work as a firefighter.
Miller said Triway Local Schools began focusing on STEAM about five years ago. The middle school turned its library into a giant STEAM Lab and added classes on drones, robotics, woodworking, architecture, reverse engineering and medical detectives.
“Reverse engineering began as kids bringing in stuff that was broken and discarded to take apart and see what was inside,” Miller said. He found students loved taking apart old personal computers donated by Wooster Community Hospital, so they were encouraged to see if they could get them running again. With the help of the internet, 13- and 14-year-olds began building computers.
Since then the school has incorporated the Arduino circuit board and a credit-card-sized computer called Raspberry Pi into the reverse engineering class. The students used the Raspberry Pi to control the lawn tractor.
When the project ran into roadblocks, Miller said, “That’s where our community has really stepped up and has helped us out.” Funding sources include Wooster Elks, Wooster Brush, the Romich Foundation, and Buckeye Deli and Pizza.
“Watching the students work on this project has been amazing,” Miller said. “It’s been problem-solving, collaboration and innovation.”
And it’s just the beginning, he said. “Next year our kids can build on what we have here.”