Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Week
Each year, seniors from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering participate in the Senior Design Symposium, in which students showcase a variety of senior design projects that they built throughout the semester.
The course is split into a Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Course and an Aerospace Engineering Senior Design Course, both of which task students with specific issues they must solve by designing and building a prototype of a product or device that could aid in a variety of different applications. Between April 12 and 15, hundreds of students presented and demonstrated their projects during three Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Days and one Aerospace Engineering Senior Design Symposium.
This year in Mechanical Engineering Senior Design, there were 42 teams comprised of 217 total students.
The students presented and demonstrated their projects across three senior design days, during which each team would pine for the favor of the judges and industry sponsors that would select the winning teams for each project.
On the first day, the Pack Motorsports teams Formula SAE and Baja SAE, competed against four teams that were tasked with designing heliocopters for the Helio-E research group of North Carolina State University under Dr. Larry Silverberg. The Formula Team, which builds a new formula racing car each year, designed an improved steering and braking system that will decrease the braking and steering effort required from the driver. The Baja Team, on the other hand, was tasked with building a test apparatus that safely secures a T-shaped weld sample for the duration of a destructive weld test. Each of these projects is sponsored by MAE and each team’s advisors, and the winning team of this section was Team Helios, which (as their name implies) completed the heliocopter project.
Also on the first day, six teams presented their Zurn Sponsored industry project, which tasked them with developing a faucet with a nonmetallic waterway. The winning team for this section was once again was the unnamed Team #4.
On day two of the presentations, 18 teams demonstrated three different industry sponsored projects.
Six teams demonstrated their Hybrid UV Filter systems, sponsored by Pentair. This project tasked students with designing a hybrid pool filter that integrates mechanical filtration and UV light sanitation. The winning team for this section was the unnamed Team #4.
Six teams demonstrated the Bob Barker Sponsored project to design a system that is safe, PREA-compliant and offers privacy to users of shower stalls in correctional facilities, for BobBarker co. The privacy system should be novel, sanitary and effective, with minimal risks to the user. The unnamed Team #2 won first prize in this section.
On the third and final day of the Mechanical Engineering presentations, six teams demonstrated their designs for the John Deere Sponsored industry project to design a folding mechanism for a rollover protective structure (ROPS) of a lawn mower that improves user experience compared to existing designs. Taking home first prize for the ROPS project was Team ROPStars.
The remaining six teams on day two demonstrated their Caterpillar Sponsored project to design an improved progressive thumb linkage for Caterpillar mini hydraulic excavators by reducing the Rackback angle to improve clearance while maintaining clamping force and covering a full range of motion with the bucket. The winning team in this section was team CaterPack.
Finally, the remaining six teams presented their International Inventory Management Sponsored projects to provide a design solution that would increase the mean time between failures (MTBF) of the IIM Globoidal Indexing Cam gearbox. This solution should allow the machine to maintain positional accuracy for at least two years of standard industry use. The winning team in this section was team Weight Watchers.
Join us at our next Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Week, Spring 2023.
Details coming soon.