Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Polygait Conveyor Upgrade, William J. Schafer, Carolyn E. Palmer, Carly A. Tudor, Bryan C. Cordutsky

Mechanical Engineering

The PolyGAIT Conveyor Upgrade Mechanical Engineering Senior Project consisted of the complete design process to construct an operational “smart” control system for the conveyor belt loop on Cal Poly’s campus. As requested by project sponsor Dr. Tali Freed, an Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering professor at Cal Poly, the control system requirements included connecting existing conveyor components together, such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) reader tunnels, photo eye motion sensors, motor powered rollers, and diverting elastic bands. The main design problem is when packages with RFID tags are moving at industry high speed (10 ft/s) they are occasionally not scanned by …

Cnc Feed Drive Control, Ryan J. Funchess, Caleb P. O'Gorman, Nick J. Desimone, Juan M. Majano, Samuel K. Wong

Mechanical Engineering

This document serves as the Final Design Report (FDR) for a senior project developed by our team: four senior Mechanical Engineering students and one computer engineering student at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). While the project was completed for, and sponsored by, Professor Simon Xing of Cal Poly, the remainder of the university’s controls professors will be indirectly benefited from this project. Our goal was to design and implement a functional CNC Feed Drive to be used for educational demonstrations and data collection. This document discusses our early product research and benchmark goals, which established constraints …

Controlling Locomotion Of A Robotic Leg, Tai K. Mitchell, Connor Bush, Patrick Ward, Ben Spin

Mechanical Engineering

Dr. Xing and Professor Refvem are working to research and develop a quadruped robot that is capable of basic movements including walking, running, and jumping. As senior project group F-11, we are joining a team of engineers to assist in the development of the quadruped. Our team was tasked with creating a mathematical model, designing a control method, and implementing that control method for the quadruped's legs in Simulink. This will allow both current and future students to understand the response of the system and provide a building point for future researchers to create working quadrupedal robots. This report documents …

Inverted Fluorescence Microscope, Matthew B. Pfeiffer, Spencer George Hann, Thomas James Eggenberger, Trevor Lee Blythe

Mechanical Engineering

Team F13 is composed of Trevor Blythe, Spencer Hann, Matthew Pfeiffer, and Thomas Eggenberger. We are all majoring in mechanical engineering and in our final year of study here at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. This project is a continuation of a 2019-2020 senior project. The previous team designed and built a functioning inverted fluorescence microscope (IFM) from scratch. This device was created as a lab tool for undergraduate students to be able to perform experiments on microfluidic devices constructed in Cal Poly’s Microfabrication Laboratory. Although substantially functional, several design constraints had not yet been met. Our team has improved …

2 Degree Of Freedom Robotic Leg, Oded Tzori, Henry Terrell, Adan Martinez

Mechanical Engineering

Professor Xing, an assistant professor at Cal Poly, proposed the 2 DOF Robotic Leg project for this quarter’s senior project class. The project is to build a robotic leg attached at the hip to a stand, which will be used as a teaching tool and eventually help develop Cal Poly’s very own robotic quadruped. Since this project has multiple uses after its completion, there are multiple customers that it must perform well for: the Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering (ME) Department, the ME Lab instructors, and the students. The Scope of Work (Sections 2 & 3) is composed of 2 main …

Electronic Cvt - Controls, Alec William Hardy, Jessalyn Leora Ann Bernick, Nicholas Esteban Capdevila, Tristan Charles Perry

Mechanical Engineering

The following document outlines the design process, manufacturing, and testing of the control system for an electronically controlled continuously variable transmission (ECVT). This control system was integrated into the custom designed and manufactured mechanical transmission system created in parallel by another senior project group. The transmission was designed for use in the Cal Poly Baja SAE vehicle. Through researching customer needs, competition requirements, previous and alternate CVT designs, and vehicle characteristics, we were able to determine the requirements and specifications for our unique system. Input, output, speed, and durability requirements guided our hardware selection. The primary components which comprised our …

Autonomous Vehicles Operating Collaboratively To Avoid Debris And Obstructions, Toan T. Le, Cole W. Oppenheim, James H. Gildart, Kyle M. Bybee

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate the safety and increased fuel efficiency of an automated collision avoidance system in collaborative vehicle platooning. This project was cosponsored by Daimler Trucks North America headquartered in Portland, Oregon, as well as Dr. Birdsong, and Dr. DeBruhl of Cal Poly. The mechanical engineering team consists of Cole Oppenheim, James Gildart, Toan Le, and Kyle Bybee who worked in coordination with a team of computer engineers. Vehicle platooning is a driving technique to increase the fuel efficiency of a group of vehicles by following a lead vehicle closely to reduce the drag experienced …

Wheelie King Trainer And Controller, Michael C. Uytingco, Paul E. Hubner, Dmitriy Petrovykh

Mechanical Engineering

The ``wheelie'' is a popular, classic bicycle trick which novice bicyclists often attempt as an introduction to advanced bike tricks. However, many are hesitant to try due to the risks and safety hazards associated with performing one. The purpose of this project is to create an on-board system which will assist a user in maintaining a wheelie after achieving the required position while incorporating safety mechanisms to prevent the user from injuring themselves or others. Additional requirements of the system are non-obstructive features and seamless transitioning between wheelie conditions.

Upon researching the state of wheelie technology, existing products, such as …

Dyno-Mite Redesign, Brandon Joseph Miller, Daniel Robert Hoffman, Richard Demedici Young

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly Mechanical Control Systems Laboratory currently employs an outdated device, known as the Motomatic, to teach students about various motor characteristics and control methods. These include open-loop vs. closed-loop control, speed vs. position control, and DC motor response curves. The current device does not function properly and produces unreliable data due to overwhelming non-linear effects such as stiction and shaft misalignment. Our team was tasked with designing a replacement device that retains many of the same educational goals as the original lab procedure, while also adding new educational goals pertaining to the device system dynamics. The new apparatus, …

Blend It Wine Blending Distribution System, Connor Clarry, Russell Temple, Matt Moren

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Small-Scale Intelligent Vehicle Design Platform, Christopher Grant, Jay Miley, Evan Phillips

Mechanical Engineering

Intelligent Vehicle Design is a growing field with the potential to save many lives by actively minimizing the impacts of human error. Though there are many ways to research intelligent vehicle control, full-scale implementations are expensive and dangerous and computer simulations have extremely steep learning curves. Researchers and students need an accessible, adaptable, and robust development platform to rapidly create and test autonomous control algorithms. While small-scale platforms are often designed from the ground up for specific projects, this requires analysis, design, and manufacture. The goal of this project is to develop a small-scale intelligent vehicle that can be configured …

Biomimetic Seal Flipper Test Rig, Gordon D. Belyea, Laura Kawashiri, Dylan Rinker, Kurt Beske

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Magnetic Bearing For Bently Nevada Rk4 Rotor Kits, Sean Fowler, Garrett Olson

Mechanical Engineering

Active Magnetic Bearings (AMB) are contact free bearings that support loads by magnetic levitation. This is accomplished by generating magnetic forces with electric current through a series of electromagnets surrounding a suspended rotor mass. Along with a set of electromagnets, an AMB assembly also consists of power amplifiers for each electromagnet, a controller, and proximity sensors. The proximity sensors provide rotor position feedback to the control system, which modulates power to the amplifiers [4]. Magnetic bearings are used in several industrial applications today, including but not limited to compressors, turbines, pumps, motors, and generators. Advantages of their utility include very …

Hepa Filter Evaluation Furnace Control Unit, Matt Gainer, Marc Goupil, Andrew Woolrich

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.