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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Cookie Dough Portioning Tool, Alex Haughton, Courtney Shipp, Grant Wittenberg Jun 2015

Cookie Dough Portioning Tool, Alex Haughton, Courtney Shipp, Grant Wittenberg

Mechanical Engineering

The Brown Butter Cookie Company (BBCC) is located in Cayucos, California. They sell handmade cookies made without eggs. After a batch is made, dough pieces must be portioned by hand. This process is time consuming, labor intensive, and limits the number of cookies they can make.

Our task was to design a machine to replace or improve this step of the process. After talking with the members of the BBCC and creating a list of specifications for our device, the team has formulated a detailed design of a cookie dough portioning tool for the BBCC. This report includes information on …


Final Design Report For An Automatic Diffraction Grating, Timothy Jung, Edlin Garcia, Kelly Rorden Jun 2015

Final Design Report For An Automatic Diffraction Grating, Timothy Jung, Edlin Garcia, Kelly Rorden

Mechanical Engineering

The Automatic Diffraction Grating project explored using said technology to measure the angular separation between binary stars. This system would be a dramatic improvement from the current, fixed and manually adjusted diffraction gratings in use, increasing the capability of observatories to conduct autonomous studies of binary systems. Ideally, realizing such a system would be accomplished using a simple design and off the shelf parts, so that the project could easily replicated. The design of this system was approached with a broad look at the possible mechanisms that could be used to effectively construct an Automatic Diffraction Grating, as well as …


Solar Cal Poly Active Hvac Project, James Cornish, Jake Cosmo, Patrick Weston Jun 2015

Solar Cal Poly Active Hvac Project, James Cornish, Jake Cosmo, Patrick Weston

Mechanical Engineering

For this project, the goal was to conceptualize, design, test, and implement an active HVAC system to be used in the Solar Cal Poly house competing in the Department of Energy’s 2015 Solar Decathlon. With many house iterations, it was decided to use a split system with an outdoor heat pump and indoor air handler, paired with a HRV for ventilation. Through system modeling using Design Builder and Energy Pro 6.5, the cooling load of the house was determined along with the cooling schedule. The foreseen safety precautions and limited construction time guided the entire project, along with the active …


Mechanical Prosthetic Hand For Navy Seal, Ryan Burke, Michael Friedman, Jose Lemus, Heather Martin Jun 2015

Mechanical Prosthetic Hand For Navy Seal, Ryan Burke, Michael Friedman, Jose Lemus, Heather Martin

Mechanical Engineering

Quality of Life Plus has been improving the lives of many wounded servicemen and first responders around the country. Its mission is to foster and generate innovations to aid and improve the quality of life for those injured in the line of duty. This project is the fifth iteration of designing a prosthetic hand for an active duty Navy SEAL. The first iterations have been myoelectric systems where sensors are attached to the user’s muscles to actuate the prosthetic. However, the most recent has been a purely mechanical system, and was shoulder actuated. The design was more robust, it was …


Mini-Hand Extension, Aulivia Bounchaleun, Haden Cory, Scott Onsum, Zack Phillips Jun 2015

Mini-Hand Extension, Aulivia Bounchaleun, Haden Cory, Scott Onsum, Zack Phillips

Mechanical Engineering

Lam Research supplies equipment for manufacturing silicon wafers used in semiconductor manufacturing. Their equipment is highly sophisticated and therefore costly, both in time and money, to repair. Much of the time and money spent to service those machines when they require maintenance or repair is spent on disassembly, so Lam seeks a faster way to service their equipment. Al Schoepp, a Senior Technical Director at Lam Research, came to Cal Poly seeking a team of students to design and build a device that could emulate the human hand well enough to handle hardware and thread nuts and bolts but also …


Pier2pier: Final Report, Kevin Nelson, Anthony Miller, Paul Maalouf, Chahan Shah Jun 2015

Pier2pier: Final Report, Kevin Nelson, Anthony Miller, Paul Maalouf, Chahan Shah

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.


Cal Poly Dining: The Avenue Redesign, Eric Calbonero, Derek Nollsch, Casey Reilly Jun 2015

Cal Poly Dining: The Avenue Redesign, Eric Calbonero, Derek Nollsch, Casey Reilly

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Executive Summary

Campus Dining is planning to close VG’s Cafe during the 2015-2016 school year; as a result, the remaining restaurants on campus need to accommodate the additional student demand. The student team consisting of Eric Calbonero, Derek Nollsch, and Casey Reilly met with Campus Dining’s Director of Operations, Greg Yeo, about this issue—he directed the team toward a redesign of The Avenue Food Court. To redesign The Avenue, the project team focused on several key deliverables as follows:

  • Study current customer trends in The Avenue

  • Develop a proposed facilities layout and design

  • Perform a capacity analysis of The Avenue …


Increasing The Independence Of Children With Spina Bifida Through The Designing And Building Of A Mechanical Aide, Andrew Duffek, Robert Brent, Michael Hamada, Melissa Rodriguez Jun 2015

Increasing The Independence Of Children With Spina Bifida Through The Designing And Building Of A Mechanical Aide, Andrew Duffek, Robert Brent, Michael Hamada, Melissa Rodriguez

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

In order to assist Silas Hopper, a child with spina bifida, with getting into his wheelchair independently when being on the ground, the senior project team set out to construct a device that would fulfill that purpose. They did this through coming up with a strict definition of the problem to be solved, designing a number of potential solutions for the problem, prototyping to determine the feasibility of the solutions, making design modifications after testing the prototype, and building the final device.

The end product was a device that was able to operate mechanically, with a design that considered safety …


Cost Effective Analysis Of Big Data, Steven J. Litzsinger, Nehad Dababo Jun 2015

Cost Effective Analysis Of Big Data, Steven J. Litzsinger, Nehad Dababo

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Executive Summary

Big data is everywhere and businesses that can access and analyze it have a huge advantage over those who can’t. One option for leveraging big data to make more informed decisions is to hire a big data consulting company to take over the entire project. This method requires the least effort, but is also the least cost effective. The problem is that the know-how for starting a big data project is not commonly known and the consulting alternative is not very cost effective. This creates the need for a cost effective approach that businesses can use to start …


An Automated Solution For Analyzing Supply Chain Performance, Paul Ringelstein Jun 2015

An Automated Solution For Analyzing Supply Chain Performance, Paul Ringelstein

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering


The world is becoming increasingly connected as technology progresses and globalization reaches more countries. This interconnection creates new challenges and new relationships for both people and businesses. Now, more than ever, businesses have to work together to satisfy the high demands of customers.In a world full of complex organizations that do business together, the supply chain has become the heartbeat of corporations. The interconnectedness of the organizations in the supply chain is critical to the success of all components of the supply chain. In order to gain an advantage in markets today, data needs to be used to determine where …


Designing A Supply Chain For Wine Imports, Italy To California, Neil Magnuson, Sam Bucher Jun 2015

Designing A Supply Chain For Wine Imports, Italy To California, Neil Magnuson, Sam Bucher

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Executive Summary

In this report a framework for a hypothetical business will be covered. Bucher & Magnuson Wine Import Inc. has provided a business plan as well as a detailed supply chain design for operations. In addition, a model for scaling and a redesign of a possible storage facility will be found. This comprehensive document outlines end to end the supply chain model of the hypothetical business and moreover a framework for starting a wine import business in San Luis Obispo.

The conclusions of the results from this model are the following:

Design Of An Automated Vehicle Detection System For Bicycles: Fireworks Cycling Sensor, Jason Cheng, Peter Kim, Tory Morgan, Clayton Young Jun 2015

Design Of An Automated Vehicle Detection System For Bicycles: Fireworks Cycling Sensor, Jason Cheng, Peter Kim, Tory Morgan, Clayton Young

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Abstract

This report explores the necessity for increased cyclist safety in urban settings, leading to the birth of a product which aims to drastically reduce the risk of accidents while heightening the sense of safety overall. The project outlines and details the product development process of a consumer-friendly vehicle detection system, with a holistic scope which includes technical rapid prototyping and coding, team dynamics, decision making process, and change management. Two formal prototypes were developed before a functional final product was identified and constructed, each iteration drastically improving practicality and efficiency of detection. The final product underwent extensive testing in …


Tesla Motors Quality Engineering Application And Implementation, Nick Kwan Jun 2015

Tesla Motors Quality Engineering Application And Implementation, Nick Kwan

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Tesla Motors, in Winter 2013 during the author’s coop,had a variety of potential improvement areas regarding their quality engineering team. There were too many overall defects on the vehicles. Those defects were recognized as the cars were passing through inspection, coming off the line, as well as brought by customers to after-purchase service. One of the defects was the Charge-port Door Malfunction, in which the door of the Model S would not open on command. An additional defect was the Windshield Wiper Malfunction, in which the fluid was not hitting the car at the desired angle. Both of these defects …


Industrial Engineering Consulting, Blake J. Ahrold, Torrey M. Plana Jun 2015

Industrial Engineering Consulting, Blake J. Ahrold, Torrey M. Plana

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This paper documents the senior project of Blake Ahrold and Torrey Plana. This project was created to provide a solution to the problem of small to medium Sized enterprises (SMEs) being under represented by lean consulting companies. The project was at first intended to be a lean consulting startup and then pivoted to The Systems Optimization Club. A project charter, Gantt chart, and business model canvas were created for the startup and used as guidelines in the creation of the Systems Optimization club. The club is to be run like a lean consulting company. The club will provide teams of …


San Luis Obispo Children's Museum: The Circuit Lab, Megan Garcia, Victoria Higgins, Michael Xie Jun 2015

San Luis Obispo Children's Museum: The Circuit Lab, Megan Garcia, Victoria Higgins, Michael Xie

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Executive Summary

Over a nine month period, the senior project team worked closely with the San Luis Obispo Children’s Museum to develop a new interactive exhibit for the museum’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) floor. The initial budget given for this project was $3,000. The museum’s requirements for a new exhibit were that it must be safe for young children to use, require minimal supervision, is interactive, has learning objectives, and is economically feasible and sustainable. The team chose to build an exhibit that would teach young children about simple circuitry and electronics.

First, extensive research of circuits, children’s …


Economic Analysis And Justification For Automated Welding Systems, Roxanne Raye Jun 2015

Economic Analysis And Justification For Automated Welding Systems, Roxanne Raye

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report looks at designing a new welding process for a company in the Oil & Gas industry, ensuring method consistency and performance quality of their steel drill bit while increasing overall production. The current product is welded manually with a flux core wire, resulting in high cycle times and numerous cases of required rework.

The use of automation systems will be analyzed for their increased consistency, quality, safety, and production estimates. Specifically robotic cell design will be considered, since it can work on more parts with fewer operators, adding efficiency and flexibility to the production floor. Other areas of …


Analysis Of 3d Printer Schedule, Colin B. Mclane Jun 2015

Analysis Of 3d Printer Schedule, Colin B. Mclane

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

With recent innovations in technology, 3D printing has become a rapidly expanding manufacturing method that is being used for a wide range of applications. Their ability to build parts layer by layer instead of cutting away initial material allows this method to have almost no wasted material, creating the potential for a much more efficient, cost effective process. In order to continue the growth of this manufacturing strategy, the performance of 3D printers need to be enhanced to ensure equal or higher quality of produced parts in comparison to other manufacturing methods that are more commonly used. One important part …


Database Design For The Collection And Visualization Of Sustainabilty Data, Henry A. Kozlowski, Nikhila Perugupalli Jun 2015

Database Design For The Collection And Visualization Of Sustainabilty Data, Henry A. Kozlowski, Nikhila Perugupalli

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The goal of the project was to create a database that would be a repository for the high volume of sustainability data Illumina would like to collect. To couple with the database the project team’s goal was to design a system for visualizing the data graphically. Illumina required a database system that would be user-friendly, easy to add, delete, and edit data inputs, as well as a program that would allow the user to easily sort and graph data. The intent of the graphical representation of the data is to publish the graphs in a monthly report that would be …


Small Scale Erp Engine Design, Colyn Muir Dickson, Matthew Wade Haymond Jun 2015

Small Scale Erp Engine Design, Colyn Muir Dickson, Matthew Wade Haymond

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This project set out to create a 1) low-cost, 2) dynamic, and 3) user-friendly small scale ERP software tool. These three key attributes position this product against complex and expensive systems such as SAP or Oracle. While the product still retains the dynamic and financial capabilities any good ERP system should have, the biggest value proposition is its simple and user-friendly interface. The software has a dual product-market fit: for small businesses as a low-cost planning tool, and for universities as a teaching tool. In the design phase, the team kept a primary focus on ergonomic software development while maintaining …


Dcpp/Polygait Inventory Control System, Logan Pace, Robert Garlinghouse Jun 2015

Dcpp/Polygait Inventory Control System, Logan Pace, Robert Garlinghouse

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report discusses a proposed system to improve upon inventory management issues experienced in the M&TE Tool room for the PG&E Diablo Canyon Power plant. Effective inventory tracking and management is an important characteristic of any organization handling physical assets, and without the proper system in place, companies may lose expensive items and waste time by not having equipment available when needed. The tool room is experiencing inventory shrinkage of M&TE equipment nearing $100,000 per year largely because of an inefficient checkout system that fails to keep employees accountable for the tools they check out. Even more costly than the …


Quality Improvement At Patio Pacific, Petdoors, Tri Minh Nguyen, In Woo Suh Jun 2015

Quality Improvement At Patio Pacific, Petdoors, Tri Minh Nguyen, In Woo Suh

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Quality is key in manufacturing any type of product. Customer expectations only rise with time, and it has become more crucial than ever for companies to produce quality products to survive. This project sets out to improve quality of flagship products at Patio Pacific. This report contains the background of the company, Patio Pacific, the process of finding critical problems, and the methodology to solve them.

Customer returns and inquiries have the ability to eat up cash flow in any type of company. This senior project sets out with introduction of the project that explains how the project came about, …


Strasbaugh Nonconforming Report Optimization, Eden Andersen, Angela Asgekar, Rebecca Gregg Jun 2015

Strasbaugh Nonconforming Report Optimization, Eden Andersen, Angela Asgekar, Rebecca Gregg

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This paper strives to convey the problems and proposed solutions for Strasbaugh’s Nonconforming Report (NCR) Optimization. Strasbaugh is a world leader in silicon wafer polisher and grinder technologies. After a significant down size to the company parts they used to manufacture now have to be purchased, and many of these incoming parts do not conform to Strasbaugh’s high standards. This has led to an increase in NCRs that need to be processed, which takes up time, resources and money.

The objective therefore became to update the multi-sheet carbon copy paper system to better optimize the use of these reports and …


Conversion Of A Gas Combustion Engine To An Electric Motor In A Porsche 924, Ashley Weed Jun 2015

Conversion Of A Gas Combustion Engine To An Electric Motor In A Porsche 924, Ashley Weed

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

This paper is a walk-through of converting a gasoline Porsche 924 to and electric engine. The paper begins with steps on how to remove the gasoline engine. It then goes into setting up the electrical system for the new electric vehicle and then follows up with the motor installation. The end of the report discusses the testing and results of the electric vehicle and finishes up with recommendations to anyone who attempts a similar project.


Shark Alert: Early Warning System, Cory Peterson, Marc Rauschnot, Taylor Mcclain Jun 2015

Shark Alert: Early Warning System, Cory Peterson, Marc Rauschnot, Taylor Mcclain

Electrical Engineering

The Shark Alert Early Warning System is a device geared toward avid beach goers such as surfers, divers, and swimmers. The system is composed of an ultrasonic transmitter mounted on a shark’s dorsal fin and a receiver worn by the user around the ankle. The receiver alerts the user to the presence of a shark upon ultrasonic signal detection.

The receiver warns the user through both visual and tactile (vibration) alerts to ensure user notification. This circuit was built and tested in the EE labs and Recreation Center pools to determine transmission range. The receiver detects the transmitted signal up …


Cable Drag Test, Alex Powers, Brandon Sadiarin, George Rodriguez Iv, Torey Kruisheer Jun 2015

Cable Drag Test, Alex Powers, Brandon Sadiarin, George Rodriguez Iv, Torey Kruisheer

Mechanical Engineering

The Smooth Shifters is a team composed of Alex Powers, Brandon Roy Sadiarin, George Rodriguez, and Torey Kruisheer. We are four senior mechanical engineering students at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo, California that are working on a senior design project for Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc. located in Morgan Hill, California. We will be under the advisement of Professor Sarah T. Harding of the mechanical engineering department at Cal Poly.

Specialized, one of today’s leading bicycle companies, is in need of a test setup that measures brake and shifter cable drag. High performance cyclists using time …


Solar Decathlon 2015, Solar Cal Poly; Solar Cal Poly Project Engineers, Cristina Paquin, Julien Blarel, Sanchit Joshi Jun 2015

Solar Decathlon 2015, Solar Cal Poly; Solar Cal Poly Project Engineers, Cristina Paquin, Julien Blarel, Sanchit Joshi

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.


Cal Poly Heliodon, Gregory Bucher, Lucas Carter, Jake Hamilton, Robin Hubilla Jun 2015

Cal Poly Heliodon, Gregory Bucher, Lucas Carter, Jake Hamilton, Robin Hubilla

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of the Heliodon project is to provide professors with a means to educate students about the movement of the sun and how that movement varies with location on earth and throughout the year.


Jonathan’S Natural Juices Mechanical Juice Dispenser, Andrew Meyer, Jesus Gutierrez, Danielle Lauinger Jun 2015

Jonathan’S Natural Juices Mechanical Juice Dispenser, Andrew Meyer, Jesus Gutierrez, Danielle Lauinger

Mechanical Engineering

Team AJD was tasked with trying to create a juice dispenser that did not utilize pumps, but rather explore the venturi effect to see if it could be a suitable substitute. The venturi effect is when a fluid in a pipe goes through a gradual reduction in diameter in a pipe to increase the velocity and lower the pressure of a fluid. Utilizing this principle the team constructed a testing device to be able to run tests and verify the theory. The team was able to verify that the venturi effect was able to make juice at the correct mix …


Team Solar Sip, Patrick Fillingham, Wesley Goodson, Kenneth Li Jun 2015

Team Solar Sip, Patrick Fillingham, Wesley Goodson, Kenneth Li

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.


Active Fog Catcher, Michael Giglio, Carson Hand, William Beechinor, Kai Zhang Jun 2015

Active Fog Catcher, Michael Giglio, Carson Hand, William Beechinor, Kai Zhang

Mechanical Engineering

The active fog catching senior project team has been asked to develop a device that will harvest water from the atmosphere, namely fog, using active means. The project will be centered on maximizing water collection rate, with efficiency as a secondary concern. The final design utilizes a refrigeration system in which fans pull air across the cold evaporators inside of a duct. Water condenses on the evaporators and drain into a collection container. It was decided to focus on maximizing water collection at the cost of efficiency because the feasibility of actively harvesting fog must be proved before trying to …