Engineering Commons^™

Active Car Spoiler, Kaiden Marouf, Connor Mccabe, Shane Nelson

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

This following thesis presents the development and evaluation of an active car spoiler system designed to adjust its angle of attack based on the prevailing driving conditions in real-time. The project aimed to enhance the vehicle's acceleration, handling, and braking, by actively modifying the spoiler's angle of attack to optimize downforce and drag for a variety of driving scenarios. Research was conducted using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software and vehicle dynamics modeling to collect precise calculations and results for a number of wind speeds. The analysis process incorporated iterative refinement of the airflow around the spoiler considering factors such as …

Aiaa Design, Build, Fly: Aerodynamics, Julian Brown, Victor Bueno Garcia, Kyle Lam, Keaton Viadro

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

As part of the Santa Clara University Senior Design Project, the AIAA Design, Build, Fly: Aerodynamics team was responsible for designing and testing the wings, tail, and control surfaces of an aircraft designed to participate in future AIAA Design, Build, Fly competitions. Named Evergreen in honor of professor John J. Montgomery, the unmanned aerial vehicle was designed and constructed in collaboration with the AIAA Design, Build, Fly: Structures and Controls senior design team. Aiming to construct a competitive aircraft for the competition, the team decided that a target weight of approximately 3.5 kg and a cruise speed of 25 m/s …

Aiaa Design, Build, Fly: Structures And Controls, George Simon, Peyton Clark, Gabe Shedid, Jonathan Kleinman

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

For their Santa Clara University Senior Design Project, this team chose to create an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with the intent of participating in the AIAA Design, Build, Fly competition. Divided into two subteams, Aerodynamics and Structures & Controls, the teams worked together to model and construct a working prototype aircraft. The Aerodynamics team focused on selecting adequate airfoil and wing dimensions for the main wing and tail through the use of aircraft design software and CFD simulations. Aiming at a cruise speed of approximately 25 m/s, the team decided that the NACA 4416 airfoil would be the most suitable, …

Stabilization Trajectory And Recovery System For High Altitude Weather Balloon Payloads (S.T.A.R.), Robert Canalas, Aaron Juan, Miles Nguyen, James Oblitas, Anne Paloma

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Of the 657,000 global balloon launches each year, only 20% of payloads are recovered, leading to unsustainable business and environmental practices. This paper details the development and evaluation of the S.T.A.R. (Stabilization, Trajectory, and Recovery) system, which increases the recovery rate of weather balloon sensors by enabling ideal landing conditions. System testing concludes that S.T.A.R. is capable of housing weather sensors in a fully controllable glider capable of targeted landing. If properly scaled up and redesigned for mass production, the S.T.A.R. system increases weather-sensing equipment recovery for weather-reporting institutions around the world. Although the featured iterations consist of basswood, carbon …

Soft Shell Helmet Cover, Jo Espiritu, Caleb Chiang, Jay Laborin, Serry Srouji, Mathew Franke

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Lattice structures usage for attenuation is growing in popularity as 3D printing methods allow for the easier production of complex structures. The application of these impact attenuators allows for wider applications that can lead to better products in sports such as football to prevent head trauma. In this paper, we aim to design and test lattice structures to determine a lattice model that best prevents impacts through drop and compression testing to provide an outer layer of protection for football players. Initial validity through finite element analysis provided four potential lattice structures with a single parameter. Physical testing determined the …

San Francisco Space Saving Bike Rack, Silas Viskovich, James Mertke, Webster Mertke, Evan Josa

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Large cities like San Francisco can experience congested streets and crowded sidewalks. Increasing bike ridership has been shown to alleviate some of these pains, but they are currently being undersupported. In order to properly account for the growing cyclist population, more efficient bike storage solutions need to be made available. Current bike racks take up too much space, are not reasonably theft resistant, and are not adaptable to a variety of both indoor and outdoor spaces. In this paper, we designed and constructed a bike rack to take advantage of vertical space in order to reduce the footprint that storing …

Frugal Leafy Green Shredding & Washing Machines, Seth Brown, Guillermo Escobar, Shane Murphy, Leslie Valenzuela, Ben Voelz

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The goal of this project is to create specialized frugal appliances to assist women in rural Cameroon by reducing the amount of time it takes to prepare food. Specifically, the project focuses on two tasks: slicing eru leaves and washing bitter leaves. After researching the market and collecting information from women in South Cameroon, two appliances were designed: an eru leaf shredder and a bitter leaf washer. The shredder is a manual shredding device that uses a rotating blade and shaft subsystem to slice leaves, reducing labor time by 62% and increasing safety with features such as a hopper and …

Cart Loader, Hayelom Fitsum, Dalveer Grewal, Ishan Kumar, Sean Mccauley, Nick O'Brien

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

For this senior design project, the team partnered with a startup, Dishcraft Robotics, to design and create a device that would decrease the time it takes to unload and load their products in and out of a truck. The team’s design, Cart Loader, consists of an aluminum structure that is able to hold their products. Outfitted with a rail system on the truck and the liftgate, the Cart Loader can move onto the liftgate and roll inside the truck, where the products can then be rolled off the Cart Loader. There was extensive finite element analysis done to ensure that …

Robovac: A Combined Vacuum Blower Toolkit For Agricultural Robots, Ershad Forghany, Joe Galang, Nico Urdanivia, Alessandro Zagni

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Robotics and automation are the multi-billion dollar future of farming, but many labor-intensive tasks including bug and moisture control are still performed by hand. The new RoboVac toolkit will streamline and economize these operations as one neat compact system. It is a fully electric bug vacuum solution that is intended for pest management on various crops. For this project, it was tested on chives. It features a retrofitted leaf blower repurposed into a vacuum, mounted onto a portable modular aluminum frame with efficient electronics that can be easily integrated into an autonomous vehicle platform. The intended future operation platform will …

Ava: The Roving Vending Machine, Nicholas Elwell, Jordan Hibbs, Jagos Jovanovic, Alec Lindeman, Antonio Matusich

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

AVA is an undergraduate engineering senior project that focuses on the design and integration of a roving vending machine. Such a product looks to utilize passing period foot traffic on college campuses when students and faculty do not have time to walk to a dining hall. In an effort to showcase a proof of concept, the team built a working prototype that consists of multiple subsystems. The vehicle has the ability to move with the use of remote control, autonomously sense obstacles and stop on its own, quickly dispense chilled beverages at a convenient customer location, and power itself with …

Smart Bike Rack, Santiago Hinojosa Andonegui, Max Luna, August Rosedale, Connor Mcgoldrick

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

With more and more people turning to bicycles as their main method of transportation every year, bike theft has become a pressing problem all around the world. Every year, millions of bicycles are stolen due to how ineffective current locking mechanisms are at protecting all the main components of a bike. Furthermore, the inefficiency of these locking mechanisms and the fear of bike theft continues to discourage potential users from buying a bike and using it to commute on a daily basis. Our team constructed a proof of concept for an automatic Smart Bike Rack which employs a three-point locking …

Coconut Oil Space Cooler, Hannah Covington, Alexander Fessler, Largim Zhuta

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

During summer months there is reliance on air conditioning (A/C), which is energy intensive in nature. The mass use of A/C units during peak hours taxes the energy grid significantly as a demand spike occurs during these peak hours. This demand spike requires an equal response in supply which disproportionately produces greenhouse gas emissions as reserve power plants come online to meet this demand. These reserve power plants, are relatively inefficient, and more expensive to run than base load plants. The Coconut Oil Space Cooler utilizes the latent thermal storage capabilities of phase change materials (PCMs) to provide a temporary …

Dual Axis Solar Tracker With Automated Cleaning System, Kevin Ehlers, Justin Eng, Nicholas Gallo, Matthew Kelley, Jonathan Lung, Brian Weitzenkamp

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Photovoltaic panels are fundamental in the generation of renewable energy both on a local scale and a utility scale. The mounting systems for such panels can be costly, require large amounts of maintenance, and miss out on energy savings. Manual cleaning and single axis tracking systems leave more to be desired from such systems. In this paper, we propose, research, test and manufacture a two axes solar tracking system with integrated water cleaning to obtain the most energy savings possible from a single PV panel. Our work shows that two axis tracking combined with an automated cleaning system can provide …

Marine Robot Sample Retrieving System, Valeriya Chulyukina, Noah Villar, Kekoa Blair, Mandeep Singh, Nathan Burke

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The exploration of our underwater ecosystems is critical. The aquatic ecosystem has a significant effect on human life, yet our understanding of the oceanic environment is severely lacking. Santa Clara University’s Robotic Systems Lab contributes to subsea exploration through its investment in remotely operated vehicle (ROV) technology. This project was done with the guidance of not only professors in the Robotics Systems Lab, but also stakeholders from the US Geological Survey scientists and researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). Our team goal was to further advance SCU’s efforts by creating a sediment sample collection system consisting of …

Bi-Directional Kerr-Lens Mode-Locked Titanium Sapphire Laser, Ricky Arnold, Stratos Koutroulis, Dylan Meyer

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Precision near-infrared absorption spectroscopy is a highly desired scientific method, but the blooming technology has not yet come to fruition. Field deployments are limited, and some methods come with limitations that hamper the viability. The laser cavity completed for this thesis project is a single cavity Dual Comb Spectroscopy laser, which improves myriad limiting characteristics of previous lasers in this application. Crucially, it can produce two simultaneous pulse trains with unique repetition rates. The laser cavity has been designed, built, and aligned for improved stability, including vibrational, noise, and thermal control. The design, analysis, and results of a dual comb …

Wildfire Prevention & Suppression System, Johnny Dimas Flores, Ansh Jetly, Antonio Lorenzo

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The Bay area community has continually been at threat to wildfires. The current trend showed that wildfires would be an even more prevalent threat in the near future. Despite this, there still exists a lack of knowledge involving wildfire safety and protection for people’s property. Current systems were found to be too expensive, needed constant maintenance, or access to isolated storage of 1,000+ gallons of water. Through research of misting systems, the effectiveness of mist as a radiation shield, and working with members of CalFire, it was determined that the system needed to meet the following parameters to be effective …

Electric Hydrofoil Board, Zach Flood, Nick Potter, Wesley Sava, Trent Walker

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The electric hydrofoil community has become very popular in recent years with its two major subsections being divided up into those that buy their boards commercially and those that build their own (the DIY community). The commercial boards are extremely expensive and can reach prices of over $12,000. This is the root cause of the rapidly growing DIY community who can build functioning boards for around $3000. Reducing this entry cost has made the sport much more accessible to new members and has allowed both the size of the community and awareness of the sport to increase. For this report …

Elastic Tail Propulsion At Low Re, Rafaela Barreto, Jennifer Miranti, Yoel Park, Elijah Vidal

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The use of microswimmers, or microscopic swimming robots, in the medical field is becoming more sought after for applications such as targeted drug delivery and microsurgery. While such microswimmers do not yet exist for use on patients, many researchers are working on this front to make them a reality. One of the main challenges in making these microswimmers a reality is creating propulsion in a low Reynolds number environment. This project aims to create and test a prototype of a swimmer which employs 3D circular movement of its tail for propulsion in a very viscous fluid, mimicking a low Reynolds …

Soft Robot Locomotion Via Mechanical Metamaterials: Application In Pipe Inspection, John Barr, Andrew Boyle, Matthew Goodfellow, Nick Rogers, Caroline Stephens

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Pipe inspections are performed using large robots that utilize wheels or tracks for locomotion. Due to their large size, weight and hard exterior, these robots can occasionally cause damage to the pipe interiors during inspection. In addition, these pipe inspection robots struggle with the ability to move in a congested environment and adapt to obstacles or geometry changes within the pipe. This project investigates the capabilities of auxetic and conventional metamaterials to achieve locomotion in an enclosed channel through the different metamaterials reactions to an axial force. The resulting robot is capable of both horizontal and vertical locomotion. Computer simulation …

Ninja 300 Motorcycle Luggage Rack, Mikel Hirigoyen, Ethan Gatchalian, Eric Tsuchiya

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The product is a motorcycle luggage rack compatible with the Kawasaki Ninja 300. This report elaborates on all aspects of the team’s work in developing this product. First, the motivations and foundational work for this project are discussed. Then, the team’s design of the entire product as a whole, and each of its subsystems are clearly laid out. System testing and results are also provided, followed by a cost breakdown of the whole process. Next, patents and engineering standards are listed as a documented justification for the team’s project. Finally, an overall project evaluation is conducted by the team.

Generating Rock Volumes Of Lower Radii (Grvlr) - Rock Crusher, Samuel Broyles, James Forman, Karla Raigoza, Hailee Silva

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The GRVLR team designed and constructed a human powered rock crusher intended to assist impoverished widows in Birendranagar, Nepal. These women crush rocks for a living as a result of intense gender discrmination which limits their access to better employment opportunities. The goal of this device was to provide an alternative method to this work that was superior under the criteria of efficiency, ergonomics, and safety. In order to inform the design of the machine, the GRVLR team used customer needs data to generate design requirements and success metrics, and finite element analysis (FEA) in order to evaluate and improve …

The Drier Dryer, Daniel Anderson, Justin Lee, Thomas Morey, Josh Sunada

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

With our product, The Drier Dryer, we aim to increase the efficiency of clothing dryers. This report contains an indepth look at the design approach we are taking to create our product. Our design utilizes a thermoelectric cooler combined with heat sinks and heat pipes to efficiently cool air to its dew point temperature and then reheat the air prior to sending it into a clothes dryer intake. Cooling the air to dew point temperature allows moisture to be removed from the air consequently decreasing the relative humidity. Throughout our design process we obtained simulation results providing a theoretical temperature …

Frugal Urban Greenhouse, Alexandra Rivera, Emma Rosicky, Connor Pearson

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

This project collaborates with Valley Verde, a San Jose nonprofit organization, to build a greenhouse as a prototype for their Super Jardinero urban gardening program. This project also partners with the Frugal Innovation Hub, and has the goal to be affordable, rugged, and simple. The group created a design that ultimately met the desired metrics for weight, cost, and ergonomics. The design style makes hardening-off easier and specializes this greenhouse for seedlings, while structures currently on the market are built for larger plants. It is cheaper than any alternatives on the market and effectively meets Valley Verde’s needs.

Portable Bicycle-Powered Refridgeration, David Gilbert, Zach Gotvald, Kerri-Ann Kamei, Lindsay Mcconville, Brooke Watson, Brian Woo-Shem

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Lack of access to viable, life-saving vaccines is a major public health problem worldwide. Our project objective is to create a feasible, frugal, and environmentally conscious transportation solution for vaccines. Our design for a bicycle-powered refrigeration system can function in both urban environments and rural areas with unreliable electricity and minimal infrastructure. This is enabled by integrating power generation from bicycle kinetic energy, thermoelectric cooling, voltage regulation, temperature control, and heat dissipation subsystems. The system is enclosed in solid housing to protect fragile vials against bumps and crashes and can be adapted to fit onto existing bicycle racks.

'Bici-Bomba' Pedal Powered Well Purification System, Matthew Kamimura, Devan Hollar, Ally Belica, Liam Scobey

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

This senior design project consists of designing and building a bike powered well pump that purifies water. The Guatemalan NGO Maya Pedal is the critical customer that requested this project, and will help facilitate implementing it in the San Andres community. The project addresses these main needs: providing an easier, faster way to retrieve water and to clean water to safe drinking levels. In addition to these primary needs, a major goal is having the project be scalable within the San Andres community. This means that all of the components are available in Guatemala at reasonable prices, it is durable …

Hydrolastic Damping: A Change To The Modern Helmet, Mark Buesa, Ara Moosekian, Michael Simeon, Ian Watts

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

High rates of concussion in the NFL suggest that helmet technology is not satisfactory for the athletes, and soft foam padding has dominated the helmet industry since its inception. The team proposed that implementing a fluid-based hydrolastic suspension system in the helmet would reduce the risk of concussions at all levels of competition. After using COMSOL to successfully model fluid flow through the dampers and after physical testing on dampers filled with air and water lead to increased "time to stop" of an average of 240% when compared to traditional foam padding, the team concluded that the dampers showed promise …

Sunny-Side Solutions: A Solar Powered Water Heating And Shower System, Adrienne Lee, Malonda Mcelwee, Jada Paddock, Jesus Reyes

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Sunny-Side Solutions is a solar water heating and shower system designed for Naretu Academy in Narok, Kenya, to provide the academy's teachers a simple, reliable, and frugal method of receiving hot water for daily showers. After thorough research and testing, the final system's main components are ½ diameter, 54.9 m long irrigation piping solar collector, a 100 L insulated hot water tank, and a 67 W circulation pump. These components ensure that all water that enters the system will be able to achieve a final temperature of 38 °C and maintain this temperature until the teachers shower and drain the …

Graftthis: Modernizing Organic Farming, Brendan Gescher, Molly Jansky, Jack Margolis, Kaleb Pattawi

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Traditional plant characteristic improvement techniques are accompanied by certain disadvantages. Most notably, it takes several seasons in order to breed for favorable characteristics such as crop yield and disease resistance via deliberate selection. In order to expedite this improvement process, grafting - a method in which two separate plants with individual, desirable qualities are physically combined, may be used.

This report explores the development of a regulated environment as a solution to many of the problems associated with the grafting of plants during their recovery stage. The grafting chamber model necessitates: (1) an ability to maintain the specific temperature, humidity …

Neptune: Marine Rov Retrofit And Shape Memory Alloy Water Sampler, Ben O'Brien, Sophia Cero, Artie Henderson, Garrett Nelson, Eleni Spirakis

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The Robotics Systems Lab at Santa Clara University worked closely with Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute to design and modernize a safe, low-voltage remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and fabricate a shape memory alloy (SMA) triggered water sampler. The scope of this project was split into two parts. The first was to modernize an existing ROV frame and flotation device with low-cost, low-voltage components for depths up to 300ft. The second scope was to design and manufacture a 100ml water sampling system that was mostly mechanical. Due to the onset of COVID-19, the functionality and performance of the ROV was verified …

Design Of An Ultrasonic Ribbon Bonder, Miguel Asturias, Tioga Benner, Brandon Van Gogh

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Ultrasonic Bonding is a solid-state bonding mechanism that can join two dissimilar materials. This report details work done to design, build, and analyze an ultrasonic ribbon bonder for research use at Santa Clara University. The bonder would allow researchers to view the bond site as the bond is being formed, which would be accomplished by bonding an aluminum ribbon to a silica substrate. Unfortunately, issues corresponding to COVID-19 led to difficulty in building the bonder during the final stages of construction. This led the team to focus on analysis rather than construction of the bonder. Specifically focusing on creating a …