Mechatronics Meltdown: BBCC event highlights technology with fun

MOSES LAKE — Fans of the future will want to be at Big Bend Community College Saturday for Mechatronics Meltdown. 

“A lot of people don’t know that we actually have robots here at Big Bend,” said Mechatronics Club advisor Justin Henley. 

The show will highlight high-tech robotics and mechatronics from a number of BBCC programs: agriculture, computer science, manufacturing and process technology and STEM fields.  

“We are so excited to welcome the community to our Mechatronics Meltdown,” club President Anthony Simon wrote in a statement to the Columbia Basin Herald. “The event will have demonstrations and activities for all ages and will showcase some of the amazing programs Big Bend has to offer.” 

“We're going to have little drone tanks that you can play laser tag with using an iPad,” Henley said. “We're going to have robotic arms that you can use to try to pick and place blocks. The ag department is going to have a little seed planting station where you can come and you can plant a plant a seed and take it home with you, as well as showing off some of their technology. And I think they're going to have an RC tracker obstacle course and some little mini drones to fly. It’s going to be a lot of fun.” 

This is the second year the club has held Mechatronics Meltdown, Henley said. In the past the college has held events centered around the Raspberry Pi, a bare-bones, inexpensive computer about the size of a wallet that students use to learn coding. Many of the machines on display Saturday will be controlled by Raspberry Pis, Henley said. 

“Instead of doing a Raspberry Pi event and talking about just the computer science applications of these boards, we wanted to bring the mechatronics in, the mechanical and the electrical and everything else, to show you that you can do more than play video games and write code with these boards and with technology,” Henley said. 

Membership in the Mechatronics Club varies, but Henley said there are about a dozen active participants. Besides the devices the college uses in its educational programs, the club members will have some of their own projects on display, 

“They’ll have a drawing machine that they built that could be used as a router or a laser or anything else, but we’ll have it set up as a drawing machine, and then some 3-D printer modifications that they’ve done,” he said. 

Cookies and coffee will be supplied free by the club, Henley said, and a food truck will be outside for those looking for something more substantial. There’s no charge and the event is open to all ages, Henley said, although it’s really geared toward ages 8 and up. 

The club will also raffle off items donated by faculty and staff. Raffle tickets can be had in two ways, Henley said: by bringing a non-perishable food item to the door, and by going from display to display collecting stamps. The raffle will be drawn at the end of the event, and hopefuls don’t have to be present to win.  

“Everything that we touch today has a computer attached to it,” Henley said. “What I'm talking on right now is a supercomputer and it fits in our pocket. The days of not working with technology are gone. Rather than have it be something that's intimidating, we really wanted to showcase the ways to have fun with technology and maybe learn through having fun as well.” 

    A child attending the 2024 BBCC Mechatronics Meltdown tries out a virtual reality system.
  

    The BBCC Mechatronics Meltdown aims to inform the public and celebrate mechatronics and computer science.