Extendable Truck Bed Team
Patrick Maloney, Joseph Mau, Harley Thompson and Leshin Varghese
Project Concept
Question: How to develop a extendable truck bed that is safe for the road and easy to use?
•Juan Rodriguez is developing A Truck bed that will be extendable to 2 and 4 feet and should result in improved functionality of the truck.
•Our goal was to develop a model to act as a proof of concept and to assist in a future IP venture.
Project Opportunity
Question: How does the problem and sponsor tie into what you’re doing?
•Our team’s sponsor asked us to create him a functioning small-scale prototype.
• By our team designing a scale model, we are effectively able to show that the concept does indeed work. Also, since we made it small enough, it met our sponsor’s requirement of being easily transported so that his idea can be shown to his clientele.
Group Actions
Question: What did the group do to fulfill this desired outcome?
•This group used the experience and knowledge from other classes at FL poly to design and test. Such as Machine design and Finite element analysis.
•Developed a schematic of the truck bed with extension along with a scale model to prove it works.
•Took action to build the model with limited resources caused by the closure of the University.
•The strong communication between group member and sponsor was the backbone of the project.
Project Outcomes
Question: What was the result of the project?
•We were successfully able to make a working scale model of an extendable truck bed
•We also designed a full-sized prototype that would meet all required engineering and safety standards
•All in all, we were able to achieve our goals that we originally set forth at the beginning of the fall semester.
•The model was not made to a high level of quality due to the limitations with the COVID-19 shutdown.
•The next step would be to fabricate a full-sized prototype.
Recap Video of our Prototype
Photos from Construction
If you have any question, feel free to ask!
Thank you!