ME691 Advanced Product Design
Advanced Product Design is focused on the tools and skills driving smart engineering decisions which anticipate user, societal and technological trends. A "proactive" mechanical engineer creates products and systems that are appropriate, effective, fail-resistant, and economically successful. We were expected to perform original research on design and engineering trends, apply advanced engineering methods to case studies, defend their conclusions, and ultimately create a manufacturable design prototype.
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Spring Damped Pastry Mechanism
(Individual Project)
Tasked with creating a drawer mechanism that opened but was spring damped such that it was able to stay open and would automatically close, slowly, when given a light tap. The spring constant and damping coefficient needed to be adjusted such that the task is accomplished effectively
Optimal Liquid Heater
(Individual Project)
Tasked with designing and simulating an optimal cup heater. The task was to have the center of the liquid be heated and maintained at approximately 165 degrees F. If the temperature dropped then the heater would turn on, if the temperature rose then the heater would turn off. Variables such as an air pocket was also integrated into the design. Full report can be found here
Trash Collecting Platform
Trash buildup in public waterways is both harmful to the environment and costly to resolve. The group focused on a pilot controlled, remote, solution for collecting trash in waterways. First, a soft prototype was constructed out of cardboard as a general model. Secondly, a critical uncertainty prototype was made out of foam and rudimentary net to do preliminary drag testing. Finally, a Computer Aided Design was created and a working prototype built based on that. More details in the presentation above. Full report can be found here