Mechanical Engineering Senior Design -- Make a suggestion!

[white-tt]

Alright OT,

I have a group of 4 , and we have a few ideas for our senior project, but nothing set in stone, and honestly none of them are the end-all for me personally. Two of us are serious automotive enthusiasts. The other two appreciate and like cars, but aren't defined by them. So automotive influence is good, but by no means necessary.

So if you've ever had an idea for something mechanical/electrical/robotic, etc... that you thought would be awesome, but didn't have the know-how or resources to develop it yourself, post it here!

1. Must be feasible. (No 'a fighter jet that turns invisible' ideas)
2. Must be within budget. (No 'platinum plated titanium stealth car')
3. Must be forward thinking (We don't want to rebuild something, we want to develop something NEW)
4. Must be mechanical, but can include electronic circuitry, computer programming/robotics.
5. Must require engineering. (If joe-schmoe can build it in his garage, it's not good enough.)

So let's hear your ideas! I have until Thursday before we're going to lay out our ideas and make a final decision.

[Flieger]

Where you at? Sounds like my school.

[white-tt]

University of Utah. You?

[mjohnson]

Something with stirling engines.

If I were a prof in charge of a multidisciplinary senior design course I'd have the kids start up a "green" distillery. Biology in charge of yeast and doing the mash, ME for making it as energy efficient as possible/solar powered/whatever, ChemE for running the distillation, and so on. Maybe get the local vocational ed school to start up a class on barrel making.

Purely for demonstration purposes. Yeah, or for biofuels. Barrel aged biofuels...

[sammyg2]

That's where my dad went to school (for part of his edumacation).

Green is the current hype and fad. Try to do something green and the professor will fall all over himself giving you praise.

[white-tt]

It's funny you guys have this green suggestion. We had the exact same discussion about the professor falling all over any idea regarding green because colleges' liberal/green stances. It is definitely a huge bonus if we can do something green. The only downside is the huge amount of money and resources being put into 'green technology' today. It makes it hard to find something unique and within reason as far as budget. We thought about biofuel/small displacement/turbocharged/carefully tuned engines, but one year just simply isn't enough time to build something like that. Let me know if you guys have any feasible ideas that are green!

sammyg2 - that's very cool. It's a great school for undergraduate work. I've really enjoyed my time here. Also it's funny you live in orange, CA. I am down here right now in Newport, and actually just ate dinner at Francoli's in downtown orange last night.

[turbo6bar]

Build a more efficient biodiesel reactor.

One area that could use help is ensuring a complete reaction. Some biodiesel guys use anywhere from 18-22% methanol/volume of waste veggie oil to get complete reaction. Folks that use mixers, mixing venturis, etc get the methanol ratio down to 15% or less. The chemistry says you only need 12% methanol. Since methanol is one of the more expensive ingredients used to make biodiesel, using less methanol and/or recovering residual methanol from the glycerin byproduct = cheaper biofuel.

Now, that may be more chemE than ME, but you can improve reaction with active mixing, venturis, etc.

If you can incorporate this into a more thorough project: tuning a diesel engine to run better on biodiesel, utilizing solar panels to heat the waste veggie oil, and major bonus points if you can use the waste glycerin.

This might not be a great project for you guys. I'm just rambling. This is some of the stuff in the back of my head in the biodiesel section.

[island911]

"Must be forward thinking"

Seriously? I would think it enough for an engineering senior to pull-off the other requirements. --I mean, even SCRAM jets have been around for some time.

Too bad you can't just write a report on "green" technology being nothing more than engineering optimization . . which has been around forever. ..you could also include the paradox of the "green' sector of reducing CO2 - being that CO2 is plant food.

Anyway, my senior ME project (early 90's) was part of a hybrid/electric vehicle for a Formula SAE competition. (I designed and built the suspension) And of course there are other Formula SAE competitions. If you could get on to one of those...

Otherwise, something with system feed-back would be good... How about an autonomous lawnmower? ...like a Roomba for the lawn.
...and if you run out of time, and it's not working, you show up with a lawn anchor and a goat on a rope.

[wdfifteen]

Do 15 levels of Fantastic Contraption.

Fantastic Contraption 2

[Hugh R]

Build a rail gun!

[white-tt]

Originally Posted by turbo6bar

Build a more efficient biodiesel reactor.

One area that could use help is ensuring a complete reaction. Some biodiesel guys use anywhere from 18-22% methanol/volume of waste veggie oil to get complete reaction. Folks that use mixers, mixing venturis, etc get the methanol ratio down to 15% or less. The chemistry says you only need 12% methanol. Since methanol is one of the more expensive ingredients used to make biodiesel, using less methanol and/or recovering residual methanol from the glycerin byproduct = cheaper biofuel.

Now, that may be more chemE than ME, but you can improve reaction with active mixing, venturis, etc.

If you can incorporate this into a more thorough project: tuning a diesel engine to run better on biodiesel, utilizing solar panels to heat the waste veggie oil, and major bonus points if you can use the waste glycerin.

This might not be a great project for you guys. I'm just rambling. This is some of the stuff in the back of my head in the biodiesel section.

It's a very interesting area, and if we had a ChemE or two in our group it would be a great subject. The problem is, as ME's we only have general chemistry, and are nowhere near qualified to tackle something as chemistry oriented as this. Although it does have ME factors, we'd need a chem to lead it, and give requirements for the ME's. Thanks for your interest though, it's a very cool idea!

Originally Posted by island911

"Must be forward thinking"

Seriously? I would think it enough for an engineering senior to pull-off the other requirements. --I mean, even SCRAM jets have been around for some time.

Too bad you can't just write a report on "green" technology being nothing more than engineering optimization . . which has been around forever. ..you could also include the paradox of the "green' sector of reducing CO2 - being that CO2 is plant food.

Anyway, my senior ME project (early 90's) was part of a hybrid/electric vehicle for a Formula SAE competition. (I designed and built the suspension) And of course there are other Formula SAE competitions. If you could get on to one of those...

Otherwise, something with system feed-back would be good... How about an autonomous lawnmower? ...like a Roomba for the lawn.
...and if you run out of time, and it's not working, you show up with a lawn anchor and a goat on a rope.

To be fair, that one is sort of my groups focus, and gives us a big upper hand on getting the project approved. There are many senior projects that are ongoing that you can join, but the reason we've branched off is we want to do something new and different.

The Univ. of Utah actually has a formula SAE team, and I even know a few guys that work on it. The problem is that there are two cars, because there are somewhere in the realm of 40+ students working on it as of this last year, and that was the formula car's first year since it was abandoned 6 years ago. They expect this year to be even larger. Everybody wants to do formula, and I dont' want to be a small part of a huge team like that, only designing a small part. For example, I know there are around 8 students right now working on the suspension setup alone.

The autonomous lawn mower isn't a bad idea! I actually really like that idea. It's perfect budget wise, and is right up an ME's alley! I wonder if it has been done before with varying degrees of success between sensors/gps, etc... Very interesting. Thank you for the idea!

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Do 15 levels of Fantastic Contraption.

Fantastic Contraption 2

Will do hahaha

Originally Posted by Hugh R

Build a rail gun!

It's funny to me that you mention this because one of the students in my group is in love with the idea of rail guns! He has to have mentioned it more than 20 times by now. If you can think of a practical application for that kind of technology, let me know

[MBAtarga]

Yes, the auto lawnmower has been done:

http://cns.bu.edu/~cjmorlan/robotics/lawnmower/report.pdf

my autonomous lawn mower

[Kaliv]

When I went to school, our senior project was picked for us...we had to "build" a manufacturing plant. Basically just the schematics and reports...not the actually building.

However, while in school I did two engineering competitions. The first one involved building automated submarines. And the second was building remote controlled amphibious vehicles that performed a pickup in the water "swimming pool" and delivery to land.

To be honest though...creativity seems to be of very little importance to a project...atleast from my hind sight. I would say employers want to see how well you document and report the information when you designed something. If all you have to show is a piece of equipment with no documentation, then you were a failure. Buidling something seems to be the easy part, putting together a fantastic report on what you built is everything.

[Hugh R]

[island911]

Originally Posted by MBAtarga

Yes, the auto lawnmower has been done:

http://cns.bu.edu/~cjmorlan/robotics/lawnmower/report.pdf

my autonomous lawn mower

Of course it's been done. ...but it hasn't been done well.

Seriously, the PDF in your link shows why -- the specification and assumptions are all wrong.

The goal is to to have well groomed grass. Unfortunately the specification reflects the goal of mimicking a person and how that person would ultimately mow a lawn (such as; not pass over the same point twice ...make a nice mowing grid...)

Throw that out....

Now, imagine a a slow moving, quiet device that seeks out only blades of grass, which are too tall.-- moves about like some of those slow-crawling pool cleaners (or like a goat), the device is continually doing the job. Could be solar powered - maybe. Start with some other power (battery).

I expect royalties, btw.

edit: forget GPS for the device. ...to get the resolution needed, would cost too much, and need updates.

[island911]

On a separate topic, let me underscore the importance of a good specification.

Product Development issues were not much discussed at the ME schools in my time.
I have since found myself mostly centered about Product Development. ...all sorts of consumer and medical products.

Anyway... No matter what you chose to do, this point of specification is crucial. You have a very finite amount of time to kick something out. ...which brings me back to....

3. Must be forward thinking (We don't want to rebuild something, we want to develop something NEW)

You say it right there "want" . ..so, put that in the column of "want," not "need." And, keep in mind that most development is incremental.


OTOH, sounds like your greener teacher may simply want to be entertained. In which case I'll suggest you give him a solar and wind powered clothes drier ...a couple recycled tires, concrete, a couple 6' T-stands placed 12' apart, and 4 cables strung atop the T between them,. ...don't forget the clothespins.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

This might not fit in with your 3rd requirement but how about this for a project.

Design/engineer the quickest and most reliable way to change all four wheels on a race car. Choose a race series such as Indy, Nascar or F1, read the rules and do something new and improved.

I did this as a work project last year and I think you would find it a lot more challenging and interesting than a bit part on a Formula SAE team.

[Tim Hancock]

Minature nuclear power source...... Nukes are the only viable longterm power source yet they seem to be overlooked right now with societies silly fascination with non financially viable forms of alternative energy.

[white-tt]

Originally Posted by Kaliv

To be honest though...creativity seems to be of very little importance to a project...atleast from my hind sight. I would say employers want to see how well you document and report the information when you designed something. If all you have to show is a piece of equipment with no documentation, then you were a failure. Buidling something seems to be the easy part, putting together a fantastic report on what you built is everything.

Originally Posted by island911

You say it right there "want" . ..so, put that in the column of "want," not "need." And, keep in mind that most development is incremental.

It's not that we're trying to get a grade by being creative. We just want to do something under our own power, and something we'd be interested in. The 'standard' senior projects are the same things they've been doing for many years. We want to do something new. It will be very well documented, and reported. We don't need it to be a million dollar item to sell to a corporation, just something new and interesting. I realize that has little to do with how we will succeed, but it is more for us and our interests.

Originally Posted by island911

...(shortened)...
edit: forget GPS for the device. ...to get the resolution needed, would cost too much, and need updates.

I was thinking that the user could 'drive' the lawnmower the first time around the lawn, and that would give it a base run. It could either automate gps waypoints to drive autonomously, (but like you said it could be out of reach) or go by distances traveled by each wheel (but I'm not sure about the accuracy of that). Another idea is to place markers at edges of the lawn that could be used as a reference field, and the lawn mower could be programmed to mow. Anyway, this thread isn't about the how yet, more about the 'what'.

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

This might not fit in with your 3rd requirement but how about this for a project.
Design/engineer the quickest and most reliable way to change all four wheels on a race car. Choose a race series such as Indy, Nascar or F1, read the rules and do something new and improved.
I did this as a work project last year and I think you would find it a lot more challenging and interesting than a bit part on a Formula SAE team.

Not a bad idea...
The only downside I see is that almost all racing series require human tire changing. I'll bring it up though as an idea. Thank you!

Originally Posted by Tim Hancock

Minature nuclear power source...... Nukes are the only viable longterm power source yet they seem to be overlooked right now with societies silly fascination with non financially viable forms of alternative energy.

If I was a nuclear engineer/physicist, this would be right up my alley, but this is out of my groups abilities. Thank you, though!

[island911]

Okay then... How about vortex generators for the body of an 83 911SC? You could try different placements, and make a bunch of roll-down tests to calc the drag deltas. ...a few sensors to measure pressure gradients.. . .

btw...

Originally Posted by white-tt

....
5. Must require engineering. (If joe-schmoe can build it in his garage, it's not good enough.)
...

d'oh, I was just going to say "Hovercraft"


Seriously tho' there is a saying; Engineers make happen for a dollar what any Joe Schmoe can make happen for two.

In other words, don't be dis'n too hard on the Joe Schmoes.