两个白色外壳的机体，在透明的模拟管道里360度旋转，一个清扫，一个吸尘。装载了红外摄像头的清洗机器人将管道中的信息传输到手机端，实现对管道内清洗状况的全程监控。近日上午，在武汉科技大学城市学院机电工程学部实验室内，“管道清洗机器人”正在模拟管道清洗工作。而该校学生团队更是凭借此项作品，在全国高校信息技术创新与实践活动中斩获一等奖，并获得一项实用新型专利和一项国家发明专利。
一件创业作品同时荣获2项发明专利，这在民办高校中实属罕见。这样的成绩也让学生团队们兴奋不已，用他们特聘技术顾问周鼎教授的一句话来形容：这是“‘土八路’战胜了‘正规军’”。
从3月份开始着手组建团队，到最后“管道清洗机器人”模型机成形，学生们几乎是从零开始，在指导老师徐陶祎以及技术顾问周鼎教授的帮助下，一步步探索和实践，前后花了近9个月的时间。“在设计过程中，因为完全是自主研发，市场上买不到标准的零件和合适机体的型号，我们就在实验室里面反复调试和修改，机器人的外壳也全都是用3D打印出来的，很耗时。”谈到在发明过程中遇到的困难，学生团队队长艾迪告诉记者。
就这样在一步步的实践中摸索，艾迪和团队成员们也渐渐从一个“门外汉”，变成了“机器人迷”。每天和队友们讨论设计思路和设计方案，进行分析总结，对机器人进行调试，解决运行过程中的一些问题。由于时间紧迫，项目任务量较大，2017年暑假，为了能够更好地沟通协作，艾迪和团队成员们选择留在学校，继续完成手中的工作。一群小伙子就待在实验室里，从头开始学起，跟着老师学习机械CAD规范、机械制图，周鼎教授也每次坐2个多小时的车从汉口那边赶过来，对他们进行指导。“自己动手画图，然后按照老师和周教授的要求反复的修改方案，直到满意为止，从实验到实践，团队所有人再也不断的磨合中更加的默契，团队凝聚力也越来越强。”7月初的时候，武汉持续暴雨，导致不少路面被淹没，那几天，整个团队的成员吃喝全部都在实验室里，加班加点，晚上睡觉用50-60个凳子一拼，就是他们的“床”。
The body of two white shells rotates 360 degrees in a transparent analog pipe, one cleaning, and a vacuum. The cleaning robot carrying the infrared camera transfers the information from the pipeline to the mobile terminal to realize the whole process monitoring of the cleaning situation in the pipeline. In the laboratory of the mechatronics Department of the Wuhan University of Science and Technology City College in the morning, the “pipe cleaning robot” is simulating the pipeline cleaning. The student team of this school got the first prize in the information technology innovation and practice activities of the University, and obtained a utility model patent and a national invention patent.
A pioneering work has won 2 invention patents at the same time, which is rare in private colleges and universities. Such a result also excited the students’ team. They used the sentence of Prof. Zhou Ding, their special technical adviser, to describe this: “this is the eight way” to beat the “regular army”.
From March began to set up the team, to the last “pipe cleaning robot” model forming machine, the students almost from scratch, under the guidance of the teacher Xu Taoyi and help technical adviser Professor Zhou Ding, a step of exploration and practice, after spending nearly 9 months. “In the design process, because we are developing independently, we cannot get the standard parts and the suitable body models in the market. We debug and modify them repeatedly in the laboratory, and the outer shells of robots are all printed by 3D, which is time consuming.” Speaking of the difficulties encountered in the process of inventions, Addie, the team leader of the student team, told reporters.
In this way in the step of practice, Addie and team members also gradually from a “outsider”, become a “robot fan.” Every day with the teammates to discuss design ideas and design plans, analysis and summary, the robot to debug, to solve some problems in the process of operation. Due to the urgency of the time and the large amount of project tasks, Addie and his team members chose to stay in school in 2017 summer vacation and continue to finish their work. A group of young men stayed in the lab, begin to learn from scratch, follow the teacher learning machinery CAD specification, mechanical drawing, Professor Zhou Ding also sitting more than 2 hours to drive there from Hankou to catch up, to guide them. “Do it yourself” and follow the requirements of the teacher and Professor Zhou repeatedly, until satisfactory, from experiment to practice, everyone in the team is constantly in harmony, and the team cohesion is stronger and stronger. Early July, Wuhan continued to rain, resulting in a lot of road was flooded, the last few days, the whole team members and all in the lab, work overtime, go to bed at night with 50-60 chairs together, is their “bed”.