June 14, 2023

Media Contacts:
Zack Jacobson, WVC industrial technology faculty, 509-682-6636
Libby Siebens, community relations executive director, 509-682-6436

The Wenatchee Valley College Industrial Technology program will present the Twisted Metal Mayhem pneumatics competition on Friday, June 16, at 2 p.m. near Batjer Hall and the WVC Greenhouse off Ninth Street on the Wenatchee campus. 

This year, three teams will compete with their pneumatic-powered music making machines. In order to compete, the student-made machines must be able to play music from the Star Wars films.

The first entry is “Chopper,” a drumming machine which WVC Industrial Technology faculty Zack Jacobson joked is made from “recycled C1 astro-mech recovered from a wrecked Y-Wing fighter by Twi’lek Hera Syndulla.”

The second entry is a pipe organ that plays “The Rebel Fleet” theme.

“This is the most unique build as the team chose to use an embedded controller (a programmable chip using the C+ language),” Jacobson said. “The two other teams chose to stick with PLCs (Programable Logic Controllers). With the PLCs, the teams use industrial automation techniques to create the timing and duration required to make something sound like music.”

The final entry is designed after a Jawa Sandcrawler and plays the “Cantina Band” theme on recycled automotive brake drums and rotors.

“This build has proven to be very challenging. It is unique from other Twisted Metal Mayhem events in that the end-product needs to operate without human intervention. They must be automated,” Jacobson said. “That little twist has made it a true capstone type project for all various students enrolled. I have seen sparks turn into fires (actually and figuratively) during this project and am happy to share the end results.”

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Wenatchee Valley College enriches North Central Washington by serving educational and cultural needs of communities and residents throughout the service area. The college is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion for all students and employees and provides high-quality transfer, liberal arts, professional/technical, basic skills and continuing education for students of diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds. Visit our website, wvc.edu.

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