College of Engineering Unit:
The Oregon State Honey Bee Lab (OSUHBL) tests the affect that certain toxins, pesticides, herbicides and other environmental factors have on honey bees by storing them in hoarding cages and feeding the bees regimented diets. The tests done by the Oregon State Honey Bee Lab are becoming ever more important as bee colonies around the world, especially North America and Western Europe, continue to collapse. The tests done at OSUHBL help bee keepers around the world understand how pests and products used in agriculture really affect the lives of honey bees at an individual and colony level.
The MIME 109 team, known as BEEvers BEElievers, was tasked with the redesign of prototypes made for the liquid feeder mechanism and the hoarding cage by two previous capstone groups. The team took the progress that the previous capstones had made to iterate their own combined prototypes. In the end the team ended up building four prototypes with different features tested and other refinements made in between builds. By the final prototype the team had refined the design, completely changed the cage and feeding mechanism that the previous capstones had designed. The final modular cage, shown on the left, was a huge success both with testing of the engineering and customer requirements but also with the sponsors satisfaction. The next step for this project will involve getting 80 of these cages manufactured and assembled for the Oregon State Honey Bee Lab to put to use. The current plans put in place by BEEver BEElievers is to have the Oregon State Machine Shop manufacture the cages out of acrylic. The cages will then be assembled by the staff at the Oregon State Machine Shop. Either the OSUHBL or ROOTS IT Support for the College of Agricultural Sciences will take care of all the 3D printed components needed for all 80 cages.
Project Communication Piece(s):
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Final Presentation | 1004.69 KB |
| Expo Poster | 1.35 MB |