Engineering Commons^™

Deep Well Pump Seal, Peter M. Gordon, Matt C. Johnson, Dylan A. Smith

Mechanical Engineering

Lifewater International, a Christian non-profit, trains locals to repair water well hand pumps in various third world countries. It would be beneficial to retrofit difficult-to-repair hand pumps with a locally-made pump cylinder such as HydroMission's "SlapShot". The majority of the components in the "SlapShot" can be easily obtained in rural third world villages. However, the thick leather gaskets required to seal the water cylinder during the pumping operation are imported. These thick leather gaskets are expensive, and when they fail, this results in pumps being out of commission for extended periods of time. Lifewater has presented this problem to a …

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The Cal Poly Mechanical Control Systems Laboratory currently employs an outdated device, known as the Motomatic, to teach students about various motor characteristics and control methods.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, …

Rogue Rotary - Modular Robotic Rotary Joint Design, Sean Wesley Murphy, Tyler David Riessen, Jacob Mark Triplett

Mechanical Engineering

This paper describes the design process from ideation to test validation for a singular robotic joint to be configured into a myriad of system level of robots.

Development Of An Insulated Solar Electric Cooker (Isec) With Thermal Storage For Use In Developing World Countries, Amanda Gyokery, Spencer W. Davis, Kyle Henry Smit

Mechanical Engineering

According to the World Health Organization, about half of the world’s population uses biomass stoves to cook their meals. However, biomass fires can be dangerous. Unattended biomass fires and indoor air pollution are responsible for an estimated 600,000 deaths annually and the creation of approximately 4 million instances of chronic disease. They also release CO2 and other pollutants into the air, and require the families to gather enough material to keep it burning (WHO 2017). Although cleaner cooking technology seems like a clear solution, often families are either unwilling to change how they cook food or are unable to afford …

Museum Wave Tank Design, David James Streng, Lisa Michelle Dischinger, John Frederick Niemoller

Mechanical Engineering

The Santa Maria Discovery Museum would like to add a tsunami wave tank to be one of their demonstrations. The wave tank needs to draw the attention of their young crowd and be educationally informative about the shapes and effects of waves. As this is a museum demonstration for children, the structure, user interface, and wave making mechanism must be durable.

We are a senior project team from California Polytechnic State University that worked on this project with Allan Hancock College and Stanford University. We created waves by rapidly moving a plunger vertically in the water column. This project allows …

Usa Boccia Ball Ramp For Athletes With Quadriplegia, Alissa A. Koukourikos, Matthew Lee, Nathan Bernards

Mechanical Engineering

In this report, the design process in creating an assistive device for Boccia Classification 3 (BC3) players is outlined. The initial research steps, including research into the rules of the game, capabilities of the players, and existing products is documented to show where ideas for the product stemmed from. This transitions into requirements that the sponsor requested, and preliminary designs and ideas for the product. Finally, this report explains the details of the final design, which has been analyzed for safety, ease of use, and ability to function under different conditions. The processes of manufacturing and testing will also be …

Poly Spotlight Control, Ryan P. O'Neill, C. Oleg Frandle, Anthony T. Lombardi

Mechanical Engineering

When this project began, The Cambria Center for the Arts Theater used a manually-operated spotlight. The sound created by the fans, along with the sheer size of the spotlight, required that it be housed in an attic room above the theater and shined through a closed window. This trapped a lot of heat in the room and involved some risk with climbing into and out of the attic room. This project sought to remedy those issues by mounting a pair of newer LED spotlights inside the theater. Doing this required a method for remotely controlling and actuating the angular position …

Medium Duty Gas-Turbine Engine Blade Removal Tool, Elliott James Greb, Jacob Thomas Syage, Kellen Thomas Field

Mechanical Engineering

Solar Turbines Incorporated sponsored a team of three Cal Poly Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering students to design, manufacture, prototype, and test a tool for the removal of turbine blades from their respective disk assembly without damaging the disk itself. The tool was developed for Solar’s industrial gas turbine engines. The tool complies with all OSHA and Solar Turbines safety and engineering constraints, and was designed for use in a shop facility. The tool was made adaptable for geometric variances in multiple turbine rotor disk stages, and requires no more than one technician to operate using a maximum of two shop resources. …

Animated Otto-Langen Atmospheric Engine, Keiran M. Hansen, Lance Hodgson, Rachel A. Jakob, Chris J. Splees

Mechanical Engineering

Based on an existing relationship between Dr. Owen and the Deutsches Museum, Otto-Mated was given the opportunity to collaborate with the two in a year-long senior design project. Otto-Mated was tasked with modeling and simulating the Otto-Langen Atmospheric Engine as a form of preservation and education. The model was created in SolidWorks and animated in Blender, effectively providing the museum with accurate and educational videos demonstrating the engine’s function. Within this document are the plans, decisions, and processes used to create our final product for Deutsches Museum.

Cal Poly Table Top, Kelsey M. Ishimatsu Jacobson, Andrew J. Whitney

Mechanical Engineering

Since many tables currently used at Cal Poly are not ideal for active design situations, we have designed, built and tested to be used in design classrooms with an emphasis on using the tables to quickly prototype ideas. This table is a standing height table in a trapezoidal shape which can comfortably seat four people. The modular design of the table allows multiple tables to be use to create different shapes so that the tables can be used in multiple ways.

Device To Standardize Leaflet Droop Testing, Mark Butler, Daniel Lussier, Kyle Timm

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Reliability Test Fixture For Flexible Hybrid Electronics, Julia Akiko Roche, Maya Francesca Zumel Manzano, Paul Alfred Swartz

Mechanical Engineering

During the 2016-2017 school year, the Cal Poly NextFlex Group, in conjuncture with the Cal Poly Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department, was comprised of professors, undergraduate students, and graduate students all working towards the manufacturing of flexible hybrid electronics (FHEs). FHEs, which are comprised of a flexible plastic substrate (thermoplastic polyurethane), screen-printed silver ink, and a thin silicon wafer, have a wide range of potential applications. At the time of this project, FHEs and other flexible electronics did not have a set of test standards to characterize their mechanical and electrical properties. The Cal Poly NextFlex Group recruited three Cal …

Maize Mill Senior Project, Jose Ignacio Delgado, Wesley C. Curtis, Charles Steese

Mechanical Engineering

Engineers Without Borders (EWB) has worked on several projects to help developing communities around the world build the infrastructure necessary for modern life. One of their projects is the creation of an inexpensive and easily manufactured maize mill that communities in Africa (mainly Malawi) can use to grind corn and make their main food source, Nsima. Geoffery Wheeler, an accomplished engineer and former mentor to EWB’s Malawi team, wants an inexpensive, easily manufacturable and effective maize mill that can be fabricated and sustained in Africa.

This report describes the process in which the Maize Mill Senior Project team created the …

Electric Vehicle Drivetrain, Jimmy Andrew King, Kevin Kristopher Moore, Charissa Cadence Seid

Mechanical Engineering

This document serves to outline the design and development of Sharpell Technologies' ST5 electric vehicle drivetrain. Background research was conducted on various drivetrain components and testing methods, leading to the development of our drivetrain’s design requirements. Compiled in this report are the specifications of the components that will be integrated into our drivetrain design. All component calculations and specifications can be located in the appendices. An in-depth manufacturing plan features the modifications necessary to create several key components such as the shafts and housing. The assembly plan details a step-by-step process in which the components are arranged to ensure a …

Cal Poly Compost Chomper, David Anthony Jungquist, Cory James Parmenter, Joseph Mark Mcgill

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this final design report is to detail the design, manufacturing, and testing of a bicycle powered compost cutter for use by the Captain Raymond Collin’s Elementary school. Students in the garden program are tired of manually chopping up garden waste into small enough pieces to be composted effectively. Project Sponsor and Master Gardener, Susan Deogracias had the idea to create a pedal powered compost cutter which would save time and improve moral for the aspiring gardeners.

This report details the ideation process the team went through in defining the compost cutting system. Engineering methods are documented for …

X-Beam Alignment System, Whittaker Ian Hamill, Joseph Michael Falcao, Robert Kim-Yan Tam

Mechanical Engineering

The goal of the project was to design, build, and test an automated machine for Micro-Vu that will align a pair of rails to the necessary precision and affix said rails to Micro-Vu's X-Beam as to reduce manual labor and human error.

Megan's Treadmill, Michael Peck, Daniel Byrne, Eddie Ruano

Mechanical Engineering

Megan is a 21-year-old Special Olympian in the local San Luis Obispo area who loves to move. Due to a visual impairment, Megan is limited in the amount of time she can be active and she currently relies on the help of a partner when she exercises. For example, during the school year, Megan participates in the Friday Club in the local recreation center where she teams up with a kinesiology student to obtain physical activity. She also competes every year in the Special Olympics held at Cuesta College. Megan races in the 50- and 100-meter dash holding a baton …

Additive Manufacturing Part Failure Detection, Angel Coria Jr, Shaunessy Grant, Jacob Whipple

Mechanical Engineering

The objective of this project is to create a part failure detection sensor system that will allow Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to detect cracking during the building process. Due to the time intensive nature of the SLM process, a part that may take 14 days to create could have a defect within the first hour of manufacturing, but the operator would have no idea that there was a fault in the manufacturing until culmination of the process. The proposed system will allow the operator to know when in the process the part became defective, and therefore save resources and machine …

Mini High Temperature Test Unit Final Design Report, Kevin Liu, Juan P. Castillo

Mechanical Engineering

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has invested considerable effort to develop new standard for nuclear grade HEPA filters that can withstand high temperatures along with methods to optimally test not only the experimental filter media, but also new frame seals and media binders. Therefore, LLNL in collaboration with Cal Poly has designed and built a Mini High Temperature Testing Unit (MHTTU) to recreate conditions observed during a fire and to test different materials in an effective, inexpensive, regulated and reliable method. The existing prototype was unable to achieve the ideal testing conditions of 1000°F air at the low flow rates of …

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 …

Inyo National Forest Sign Maker, Brandon Mainini, Lauren Kirk, Alec Boyer

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Sae Small Vehicle Lifts, Augustus G. Holz, Nathan K. Harry, Tobias W. Shirts

Mechanical Engineering

The SAE (Society for Automotive Engineers) vehicle teams at Cal Poly need an easy way to access the undersides of their vehicles to facilitate maintenance and servicing. The purpose of this project was to provide a solution that could lift the vehicles effectively and safely from above so that the underside of the vehicles can be accessed, as well as elevating the vehicles to an ergonomic working height. Design specifications were determined based off each vehicle’s requirements in addition to what the team intends to do with their suspended vehicle. After several concept iterations, the team decided to purchase an …

Polysat Helmholtz Cage, Alex Nichols, Nicolas Le Renard, Jordan Skaro, Louie Thiros, Madeline Tran

Mechanical Engineering

The MagCal5 Helmholtz cage project is an interdisciplinary approach to provide the PolySat/CubeSat research lab with a magnetic testing environment for the calibration of magnetic components and verification of various control laws. The Cal Poly CubeSat organization is the home of the CubeSat Specification, and acts as a testing and integration facility for CubeSats built by universities across the world. The PolySat organization is a CubeSat developer that works with numerous industry partners to design, manufacture, and operate CubeSats to further scientific advancement. The addition of a magnetic test stand to the lab will allow CubeSat to extend to the …

Marine Biomass Analyzer, Kai Jay Staal, Brian Paris, Tyler Cottle

Mechanical Engineering

This report documents the design, fabrication, and testing for a marine biomass analyzer. The goal of the project and constructed system was to determine the validity and efficacy of a process that could flatten benthic macrofauna to a consistent thickness such that a biomass for the collected sample could be accurately determined. The system that was built and tested consists of a drive train that turns a mill subassembly where the organisms are flattened, supply and collection spools that hold the white fabric and clear film used to capture the organisms, a collection zone where the sample is injected, and …

Carbon Fiber Monocoque Chassis Platform For Formula Sae And Formula Sae Electric Race Cars, Ford Eimon, Michael Gonzalez, Michal Kramarz, Nathan Powell, Kevin Ziemann

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Azelia's Walker, Jordan C. Ramsey, Kathleen C. Balfour, Jayne K. Benedict, Gabrielle Merkin

Mechanical Engineering

A Biomedical Engineering student, KC Balfour, two Mechanical Engineering students, Jayne Benedict and Gabrielle Merkin, and one Industrial Engineering student, Jordan Ramsey, make up the interdisciplinary senior project team of Azelia’s Walker. The goal of Azelia’s Walker is to create a custom walker for an 8-year-old girl in the San Luis Obispo Community, named Azelia, who has decreased motor control. Her current walker does not suit her active and energetic lifestyle, so Azelia’s Walker is challenged to design and manufacture a collapsible all-terrain walker that best suits Azelia’s needs. Throughout the academic year, Azelia’s Walker participated in the brain-storming and …

Cal Poly Supermileage Steering System, Lucas S. Rybarczyk, Sean K. Michel, Giovanni P. Murillo

Mechanical Engineering

The following report outlines the full design process that the senior project team went through to develop a steering system for the 2018 Cal Poly Supermileage vehicle from the development to the manufacturing and testing of the senior project steering system. The team was successful in reducing the weight of the steering system from 12.64 to 5.85 pounds while remaining within the cost budget provided for the Cal Poly Supermileage team. The new steering system initially failed drop testing which resulted in the uprights pulling out of the bottom carbon supports. This failure was repaired with a small redesign to …

Soft Target For Advanced Emergency Braking System Daimler Trucks, Kurt C. Ebert, Kolter Knapp, Esgar Pulido

Mechanical Engineering

This report provides an overview of the AEBS Soft Target project delivered to Daimler Trucks North Amer- ica as part of the 2016-2017 Mechanical Engineering Senior Design class at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The purpose was to build a soft target to test Advanced Emergency Braking Systems, or AEBS, on Daimler 0 s large trucks. Though this design is for Daimler specifically, there may be other interested parties such as highway safety groups and rival auto manufacturers. Currently, there are no suitable alternative products that satisfy every requirement for Daimler to validate their systems. They require a …

Universal Fixture For Orbital Tube Welding, Kevin P. Mcgowan, William Divittorio, Jesse Castaneda

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.