Initial Project Proposal  

San Marin High School

Tanner Spence, Andersen Teoh

Max Leonard, Wesley Fink
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Table of Contents
1-Table of contents
2-Background
2-Broader Scope
3-Objectives
4-Timeframe
4-Project Budget
5-Developmental Process
5-Tests, Survey, Research Questions
5-Things you will need to research and ask going forward
6-Current Solutions
6-Scientific/Engineering Concepts (Need to knows, need to include)
8-Monitoring and Evaluation
8-Signatures
9-Citations
9-Appendix

 
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Background Research
Pykrete

Pykrete was discovered in late 1942 by Lord Mountbatten. It is what's known as an ice alloy, in this
case, 14% sawdust, 86% water. This enabled it to hold its temperature better, resist impacts, and
maintain its shape. Its first demonstration of durability was a trial by fire in Lord Winston
Churchill's bathtub.. The second was when rifles were fired at it, dealing little to no damage. The plan
was to construct a 2 million ton aircraft carrier from the alloy to protect Atlantic shipping from
German u-boat attacks.. It would be the largest military vessel ever constructed. By the time the
design was finalized however, the niche had been filled by long range bombers and the project was
shelved.

In 1943, more tests were done to look at similar vessels, namely cargo ships. Pykrete remained
stronger than ice, yet lighter and cheaper than steel or concrete. Further development has led to
numerous amature boats made of the alloy, and several serious looks at using it to create structures.
One notable attempt came from the University of Vienna. A 10 meter dome was built and left alone,
lasting several weeks before the sun melted it. While our project is to build dynamic tools, it will
change how we build structures in arctic conditions!.

Broader Scope & Objectives

Broader Scope
Our product is designed to deal with the issues of lack of space that scientists, engineers, and
researchers have when traveling to assignments on other planets, space, or extreme cold
environments on Earth. It also has the benefit of reducing the amount of resources that tools
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consume to make. In areas where obtaining a set of tools is very difficult, our product, with its
minimal requirements and cheap cost, seems very desirable.

At the moment, we do not have a specific company in mind to advocate our project to. We are
planning on putting our idea out there and seeing where it goes. If any group is willing to contact us
and tell us that they are interested in the idea, we will definitely follow up with them.

Project Icebreaker fulfills a demand for affordable, durable tools that satisfy the needs of our
consumers. Not only is it a product designed to assist valuable members of society in their work, it
is also a fun project that anybody could do even in their own backyard.

We are planning to create a crude prototype of our product using a wooden handle rather than any
of our proposed materials due to accessibility at the moment. We will be testing this prototype
against a typical tool of the same type in order to gauge how well our design holds up over
extended use and how effective it is at completing its task.

Objectives
Throughout our time working on Project Icebreaker, we have several objectives that we wish to hit.
These include:
● Consult more with our mentors to flesh out our final planning steps
● Create initial sketches of what our product would look like
● Get feedback from Tronconi and mentors to improve design sketches
● Create finalized sketches
● Obtain materials to create a prototype
● Design a working prototype out of affordable, readily available resources
● Run a series of tests of the prototype, testing strength, durability, and effectiveness
● Modify prototype if needed
● Present finalized prototype and discuss the broader plans of Project Icebreaker

Completing these objectives will lay the groundwork for our effort to be further tested and realized
as a commercial product in the future.

 
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Timeline & Budget

Timeline
For information on our timeline, our team’s Gantt chart on ​Toggl​ will be updated regularly. Toggl is a
free time tracking application developed in Estonia. The app makes it easy to divide by tasks and
provides a clear timeline of linear progress. Included on this chart will be the various tasks we will
be completing for the project, when they will be started and finished, and by who. Tasks done prior
to the completion of this proposal will be already logged on Toggl. The start date of this project was
8/27/20, when our Capstone team was created and will conclude on or before 12/19/20, the final day
of the Fall 2020 semester, and of Senior Engineering.

Project Budget
For the purposes of calculating our budget, we will be estimating the cost for a pykrete
sledgehammer. To make the pykrete itself, we will need water (a widely available free resource on
campus) and 5 pounds of sawdust at $29.99.

We would also need a 3D printed mold for the head of the hammer. To do this, we would use the
marker space printer and have our head printed from PLA. Our actual tools would have silicon-based
heads, but PLA is the more realistic material for our initial prototype.

The last part we would need to account for is our dowel rod. For our prototype. Our initial plan is to
use a carbon fiber dowel rod, but to save money for our prototype, we are using a wood-based
option. For a wooden dowel rod, we will be making it out of wood available at the marker space at
no charge to us..

We will set aside $50 in funds for a contingency fund in case any other issues or ideas arise that
require it. The total budget cost would be $79.99.
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Development Process
Our process began with us actually thinking about taking our project a completely different direction.
We started with the idea of pykrete, applying it to boats in order to make a vessel capable of
floatation. This turned into ideas about making a more eco-friendly boat, targeting cargo ships in
order to reduce carbon emissions.

All of a sudden, we had the amazing idea of making pykrete tools, changing our project completely.
Now instead of cargo ships, we will delve into the materials research of pykrete and strong alloys.
We identified the issue that scientists, researchers, and engineers want to cut down on their resource
and space usage in extreme environments.

These will now be combined with our mentor’s knowledge in order to create a prototype that we will
put against a typical tool of the same type in order to test how effective a pykrete tool is. Our product
will be assessed multiple times by our mentors and supervisors and we may give a formal
presentation if need be.

Tests, Survey, and Research Qs

Tests
The tests we plan to do are to do with the various types of metals that would work for handles, the
durability of the pykrete as well as the sawdust to water ratio. We would also possibly have to test
multiple versions of a mold for the head of the hammer.

Survey
The purpose of our survey was to get a grasp on the general public’s knowledge of pykrete, basically
how many people know about pykrete and what it is. We also surveyed for people’s opinions and
thoughts on the possible uses for a pykrete tool outside of what we had initially thought.

Survey Results/Graphs and Modified Demands & Wishes list

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Research Questions
● How does pykrete behave under adverse weather conditions and under rotational and impact
stresses?
● What types of metal alloys and composites stand up to extreme temperature conditions and
are durable enough to withstand many impacts?
● What ratios of sawdust to different types of liquids other than water to make pykrete of the
same strength?
● How do we make pykrete itself a stronger material?
● How does pykrete compare to traditional tool head materials?
● How do we advertise our product in a way that appeals to our audience of scientists?
● How can our tools be used in third world countries with colder climates?
● How can we quicken the freezing process for tool heads?
● How can we make our messaging as clear and concise as possible?
● How can we make it fun for non-scientists to use?
● What tool heads would be most effective for our target demographic?
● Why would non-scientists want/need our tools?
● Which material would be best for our rod?

Current Solutions
While there are many different products to serve as tools in our daily lives, such as a typical steel
hammer, there is nothing quite like the hammer that we are proposing. Pykrete itself is quite an
obsolete material that hasn’t seen much use since the 1940s during WWI besides being tested for
strength through gunfire and creating an entire building out of it.

Although hammers and other tools used in freezing conditions are extremely durable and quite
lightweight currently, they are primarily made of either aluminum, stainless steel and other steel
alloys, and carbon fiber. These lead to an incredibly effective tool, at a very high price, leading
upwards of a couple hundred dollars. Project Icebreaker would be much more affordable than this,
which still maintaining a great deal of the durability
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Each tool also has to be carried around with the user separately, as a “multitool” capable of
being used for many different large tools isn’t really on the market at this time. Our product
eliminates the need

for anything to be carried other than the shaft itself, water, small molds, and sawdust, some of
which can be found everywhere.

Scientific/Engineering Concepts
To start off, it is important that we have a basic understanding of thermodynamics so we are able to
make pykrete in the first place. We need to understand how the water and sawdust freeze to make a
strong material. Adjacent to this we must have a grasp on how and why hammers work the way
they do and how they accomplish their job. We can acquire this knowledge by looking at the designs
and exploded sketches of various metal sledgehammers so we know what makes them so effective.

After this we get to the prototypes stage, where we would use our knowledge on thermodynamics to
make a mold for the toolhead that accounts for the expansion of the ice whilst also keeping the
shape essential for the head. Once we have secured a prototype we like we can move onto testing
where we will need a very basic knowledge of physics specifically force, velocity, mass, and
acceleration when we test the project by destroying various objects to find the durability of the
hammerhead as well as how long it lasts.

Monitoring & Evaluation

Rigorous testing:
Our tools will be tested by us against the hardest things we can find. They will be judged and
approved by Mr. Claudio Tronconi. Should we be met with failure, we will always try again.
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Signatures
Mentors:
Chris Fehring
Jeremy Li

Evaluator Signature:

Claudio Tronconi

Team Member Signatures:

Wesley Fink

Andersen Teoh

Tanner Spence
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Max Leonard 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Citations
Collins, Paul. “The Floating Island: Paul Collins.” C​ ABINET /​, Cabinet Magazine, 2002,
cabinetmagazine.org/issues/7/collins.php.

Bryner, Jeanna. “In Austria, Imbibe in the New Ice Dome.” ​LiveScience​, Purch, 2 Feb. 2011,
www.livescience.com/11704-austria-imbibe-ice-dome.html.

Appendix
Brainstorm Padlet:
https://padlet.com/anteoh/n63j2k8bltu80mh9
Padlet Poster:
https://padlet.com/asleonard/5vth2rzf8qpl6qh0
Coggle:
https://coggle.it/diagram/X1ppLU4r0gnkM1RW/t/-/080d09150e974f31b36dab31b0fa7
19aaeebfa7a1159832f491b87033cc046d8

Concept Sketches for the Logo:

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