Engineering Commons^™

A Shoulder Mechanisms For Assisting Upper Arm Function With Distally Located Actuators, Michael Jones

Honors College

This thesis presents a new design for a shoulder assistive device based on a modified double parallelogram linkage (DPL). The DPL allows for active support of the arm motion in the sagittal plane, while enabling the use of a distally located motor that can be mounted around the user’s waist to improve the weight distribution. The development of the DPL provides an unobtrusive mechanism for assisting the movement of the shoulder joint through a wide range of motion. This design contains three degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) and a rigid structure for supporting the arm. The modified DPL uses a cable-driven system to …

An Upper Extremity Exoskeleton Utilizing A Modified Double Parallelogram Linkage Mechanism With Proximally Located Actuators, Connor Bouffard

Honors College

The shoulder joint is an extremely complex joint, with a wide range of motion (ROM), which makes designing an upper extremity exoskeleton a complicated task. This thesis presents a 3-degree-of-freedom (DOF) exoskeleton with a modified double parallelogram mechanism (DPM) that fits any wearer independent of their biological frame. The DPM is remarkably useful in wearable robotics. The mechanism creates a remote center of rotation about the shoulder joint while remaining unobtrusive and not colliding with the wearer’s body. Its fixed link lengths, however, requires it to be specially fitted to each individual user. This is inconvenient for most exoskeletons that …

Vhf Near Field Antenna Design For Wireless Sensing Applications In Harsh Environments, Nicholas Aiken

Honors College

High temperature sensors that can operate up to 1000 °C or beyond are in high demand for defense, aerospace, energy exploration and power industries. Wired sensors for high temperature operation has low reliability and high installation costs. Wireless communication provides functionality for operation in harsh environments. Wireless communication in harsh environments must be battery-free because semiconductor electronics is unable to operate beyond a few hundred degrees Celsius and there is a very limited number of alternatives for energy storage at extreme temperatures. The University of Maine’s Microwave Acoustics Laboratory (MAL) group has developed Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) devices which can …

A Layman's Guide To Malignancies: Cancer And Cancer Research In Everyday Terms, Bailee Bartash

Honors College

In the 200,000 years that humans have existed in our current homo sapien sapien form, we built our civilizations based in part on our desire to understand the world around us. The difficult part about this is the fact that our world has grown so vast and so quickly (think Moore’s Law, the observation that the speed and capability of computers is projected to double each year with an increasing number of transistors that can fit into a microchip), especially within the past century, that many people have been left behind due to their capability to understand. This gap in …

Techno-Economic Analysis Of A Seaweed Extraction Process, Zachary Applebee

Honors College

The goal of this thesis was to perform a techno-economic analysis of a seaweed polysaccharide extraction process that could estimate how economically viable it would be to harvest and process seaweed in Maine to produce algal polysaccharides. I pursued two investigations to answer this question:

First, I continued the research I have been doing on an EPSCoR SEANET funded undergraduate research team working on the extraction and fractionation of sugar kelp (Saccharina Latissima) to produce three different separated polysaccharides: alginate, laminarin, and fucoidan. My contributions to this project were primarily to hydrolyze whole pieces of seaweed and extracted …

Arsenic Remediation Of Maine Drinking Water, Austin Steward

Honors College

Arsenic, a metalloid, is one of the most prominent toxins in Maine drinking water. There are approximately 86,500 Maine citizens exposed to water containing arsenic over the maximum contamination level causing adverse effects including nausea, multiple cancers, and a reduction of full scale IQ and executive function. In drinking water, arsenic arises both by the natural leaching from bedrock and from the use of chemicals such as pesticides, embalming fluids, and wood preservatives. Although there are many known arsenic water remediation techniques, finding a method compatible for multiple arsenic isotopes is challenging. In this work, we test the low-energy and …

The Good Family, James Hannigan

Honors College

The Good Family is a story following a group of seventeens in their historic and scrutinized ’68 Birth-Night Battalia. The characters, who have trained since as early as age twelve and as late as fourteen – with heavy combat training for up to a year and as little as six months, are well prepared by the Tokien system. Demonstrating their Link-worthy will be a challenge that none of them can fully imagine, as this year is the unveiling of a Tokien-engineered tech development that will undoubtedly change the course humanity rides in the closing of the 22^nd century.