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Buoy Capstone

March 2019 - June 2019
IMG_2403.HEIC

Skills Earned:

  • Vacuforming

  • Fiberglass molding

  • Presentation skills

For this project I was tasked with assisting a group of graduating seniors design, build, and get funding for a buoy. The idea behind the buoy was that it would have an underwater hydrophone which would gather the sound pollution data from the Washington State 520 bridge that crosses Lake Washington. The bridge connects the East side suburbs with downtown Seattle. 

We begun the project hoping that we could vacuform the buoy from plastic to make sure that it wouldn't have any points for failure. After designing and creating a mold for all of the pieces we ran into a problem. Our material was too thick to properly vacuform it. After some failed attempts the company that allowed us to use their vacuforming machine gave us a large sheet of fiber glass to manufacture it using that instead. 

We spent the next two or three weeks manufacturing and testing the buoy. After completing the project we presented it at the University of Washington Bothell's senior capstone presentations. 

 

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