Passion and strong ambition. This is how one could describe the student team, which under the name strojLAB brings together students from all over the Brno University of Technology (BUT). The renewed brand with a completely new team is now completing a self-constructed milling machine, repairing a tram model for the Technical Museum of Brno and planning to reach the bottom of the Hranice Abyss. Moreover, StrojLAB is not only a team, but also a student workshop where all BUT students and employees who pass an initial training can come with their ideas.
3D printers, 3D scanner, lasers. The strojLAB workshop is equipped with the basic things that every enthusiastic maker may need. After a break, during which the workshop was temporarily discontinued, it reopened last year for employees and students and their ideas. The reopening of the workshop was initiated by a group that during the year transformed into a student team with the same name: strojLAB.
| Do you wish to use the workshop or join the strojLAB team? Check out the www.strojlab.cz website and find out everything you need. The strojLAB workshop is located at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in building A5, room 105. |
"We try to differentiate between users and members. Members are in the team, users in the workshop," explains Jan Kalina, one of the so-called "engine drivers", i.e. people who manage the workshop and take care of its operation. Anyone can use it, you just need to pass a training on work with the appropriate machine and get access by means of an employee card or ISIC. According to statistics, the workshop was used by 230 active users last academic year and more are applying. About half of them are from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, where the workshop is located, the other half from other BUT faculties.
"A scale model of the city quarter of Židenice or church furnishings were printed here. People bring along different ideas and projects. Students of different disciplines meet here, new connections and ideas are created, it is an inspiring environment," adds Kalina. The team leaders are trying to negotiate access to the more advanced BUT laboratories for the members of the team. That is where they want to work on what they enjoy most: projects that are challenging.
Milling machine with a cute girl's name
The first task the team embraced was the design and construction of their own milling machine, which they affectionately call by the cute girl's name Terezka. "We have been building it from the scratch, working with what we have available. The aim is to make it inexpensive and easy to repair, and we want to use it in the workshop for educational purposes. We bought some of the parts but for many others we looked for at home or at the junkyard, for example the motor is taken from an old mixer," says another “engine driver” Ján Chládek.
When visiting the Technical Museum of Brno, in the technical playroom they noticed a model of a tram that was marked as out of order. The students offered to try to resurrect the tram of modeller Vladimír Gabzdyl, who had been working on the model for incredible 17 years. "The tram managed to drive more than six thousand kilometers in the museum, but now its motor is broken. We won the confidence of the museum management, got one chassis for repair and we will see if we can do something about it," says Kalina.
Reach the bottom
The biggest challenge the team has come up with is called ARGO. The students want to design and construct a submarine to explore the Hranice abyss and ideally reach its bottom, which no one yet knows how deep it is. This year’s discoveries suggest that it is the deepest known abyss in the world with a depth of at least 450 meters, which is still not its bottom at all. Scientists estimate that the total depth of the abyss could be around one kilometer.
"We recognize that it is quite a challenge," says Tomáš Svoboda, who has taken care of coordinating the team’s individual projects, with a smile. The team divided the construction of the submarine into several stages. So far, they are working on modeling and theoretical preparation. During this academic year, they would like to work on a scale prototype, the key functions of which they will be able to test in the pool. Then there would be a full-size prototype equipped with sensors and other modules to be tested, for example, at the Brno lake and only in the last phase the sub would go diving into the abyss itself. How much students can dive into the development also depends on the finances they are trying to raise in competitions and from sponsors.
So far, the construction of the submarine has been discussed, but the students add the ARGO project is to involve representatives of various fields. "We have a lot of IT work ahead of us: autopilot or user interface, for example. Also electrical engineering such as power supply, sensors,... but we also need people who would manage fundraising and who would be contacting potential sponsors," says Kalina.
The participation of chemists, represented in the team by Jan Hanák, a student of the Faculty of Chemistry, is already guaranteed . Jan took charge of a module for various analyses of the dark waters of the Hranice Abyss. "There is a very inhospitable environment in the abyss, high pressure and temperature, extreme pH. We would like to map the pH profile, maybe we will come across some extremophile organisms," says Hanák. Speaking of extremophile organisms, they are said to be found in the strojLAB team of BUT. Let's keep our fingers crossed for them!