Assembly kit

When US-based Armor Holdings needed some help with the production of a machine to produce specialised kits for drug detection, it turned to students at the University of North Florida for help.

The result is the Narcotics Identification Kits Machine (NIK), a system that automates the production of the kits which are used by law enforcement officers worldwide.

The kits themselves are composed of up to three chemical-filled glass tubes encased in plastic sleeves and inserted into zip-lock bags. Officers needing to identify suspicious substances break a cylinder, pour the substance into the plastic bag and await a chemical reaction. Once the liquid changes colour, the officers consult a drug-identification chart to determine the substance.

'Production of this kit is a high-volume, labour-intensive, monotonous task, and it's hazardous due to chemicals in the ampules, which sometimes break in production,' said Dr. Dan Cox, UNF mechanical engineering professor and project adviser.

To reduce hazards and increase production, Armor Holdings challenged the students to design a machine that will produce one kit every three seconds. The students then went out and built the NIK Machine and Armor Holdings picked up the $40,000 tab!