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New Way Proudly Sponsors the 2023 ASPE Student Challenge

Every year, the American Society of Precision Engineers (ASPE) holds it’s Student Design Challenge. As a longstanding member, exhibitor and presenter as the ASPE Annual Meeting, New Way is proud to remain a sponsor for the Student Design Challenge; inviting teams of student engineers from universities across the world to design and manufacture a precision machining apparatus, beginning with a set of tools, motion systems and encoders provided by sponsors of the event. Supporting the next generation of engineers begins with providing them with an opportunity to get hands on and learn through applications, and the Student Design Challenge is the perfect venue for undergraduates with an interest in precision engineering.

Previous design challenges have included a precision scribe tool controller for engraving microlevel blanks and optical components, with verification provided by the industry leader in optics: Zeiss, as well as a confocal based measuring tool for determining the thickness of glass. The objective of the 2023 design challenge was to assemble and optimize a single axis, nan positioning stage with interferometric displacement feedback.

The teams were provided by components including:

  • a 10mm range porous media air bearing stage provided by New Way
  • a 78 nm resolution linear encoder (provided with the air bearing)
  • Capacitance probe with 50 µm range and 2 nm resolution

This level of precision is unattainable with contact bearing technology, as New Way and our numerous clients are well aware of. Porous media bearing technology enables precision only limited by the encoder driving the stage, and for additional precision, we provided students with magnetically preloaded bearings, a currently in development technology which will soon join our off the shelf offerings.

The teams were judged on the same criteria for which a positioning stage would be held to under industrial standards, namely positioning accuracy, repeatability and dynamic performance. For this year’s competition, judged at the 38th Annual ASPE Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, the top prize went to the University of Texas at Austin (Team 2), with The Chinese University of Hong Kong and University of Texas At Austin (Team 1) as the second and third places, respectively.

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If you want to discuss porous media air bearings for an industrial or academic application, please get in touch, and our dedicated engineering team will help evaluate your application and identify the right New Way solution for you!

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