Kurtis, a member of the Boca Bearing Workshop Internship program, is also a participant in the Southeastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering Mouse Trap Car Competition. Additional information on this program can be found here. 

Our SECME mousetrap car team was at a roadblock with our car. We had used 3D printing to make the chassis of the car but the axles spun very slow and poorly when making direct contact with the plastic surface so we needed help. So we turned to bearings. This decision ended up benefiting our team greatly, and eventually taking us to first place in the local SECME competition.

Our team started with stainless steel bearings, which were lightweight and relatively inexpensive. They worked great and spun for a good long time but we wanted to see if our car was capable of even more. After some research, the decision was pretty easy. Ceramic bearings were going to be the way to go. They were a little heavier but our hope was that the added distance and speed would make up for the minuscule jump in weight. Thanks to Boca Bearings we were able to acquire very high quality, higher speed, near friction-free bearings. These new bearings will hopefully lead our car to victory and beyond at the upcoming national competition.