Engineering Commons^™

Walking Simulator Mechanism, Titus Lungu, Igor Tachynskyy, Omri Tayyara

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

This paper presents the design, simulation, and kinematic evaluation of a mechanism aimed at simulating both the motion and ground reaction forces produced by a human foot while walking. Such a mechanism can be used to test the durability of shoes through life cycle analysis. In attempting to mimic the physical motion of the human foot as closely as possible, the forces experienced by the human foot were also accurately replicated through the incorporation of a non-stationary testing platform. As is shown in the paper, this testing environment allows for simple adjustments to be made in order to simulate different …

Sustainable Architecture Design: Environmental And Economic Benefits, Michael Babcock

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis examines the movement of environmentalism, and its impact on architecture and construction. During an interview with a professional architect, a basis for research of sustainable design was devised, when he explained that “good” architecture attempts to holistically integrate the external and built environment. Presently, the main measurement for sustainability is energy efficiency. Therefore, architects constantly implement new technology in an attempt to unify both the external and built environment in an energy efficient manner. Furthermore, this thesis provides an environmental and financial cost analysis of implementing sustainable design and build. Research shows that the life cycle and up-front …

Transfers To A Gravitational Saddle Point: An Extended Mission Design Option For Lisa Pathfinder, Andrew D. Cox

Open Access Theses

Any possible LISA Pathfinder extended mission will immediately follow the primary mission after completion of scientific observations and technical demonstrations in a Sun-Earth L1 libration point orbit. One extended mission concept with scientific appeal is a spacecraft path that includes multiple encounters with a gravitational equilibrium point. This point, also termed a saddle point, exists where the total gravitational acceleration sums to zero and is distinct from the five Lagrange points in the three-body problem. This investigation seeks a strategy to design such a path subject to a variety of constraints. Periodic, quasi-periodic, and manifold structures are explored to …

Methods For Designing Partially Inflated Geotubes, Shu-Wang Yan, Jing Chen, Li-Qiang Sun

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

A widely used technique in constructing dikes for land reclamation is to use tubes made of sewn geosynthetic sheets. These tubes are usually filled with slurry comprising soils, such as sand, silt, and clay. The tension stress that develops in geosynthetic tubes during tube filling is the dominant factor considered in constructing safe dikes. Existing design methods are effective for sausage-shaped tube designs; however, they cannot be directly applied in flat tubes, which are commonly used in dike construction. This paper presents a procedure that can determine the relationships among tube size, pumping pressure, unit weight of the slurry, and …

Thinking Like A Pro: How Experts And Novices Solve Problems Differently | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Jan. 7, 2016 – Engineering education experts at Utah State University are narrowing in on new insights into why young engineering students drop out of their programs or change majors.

It’s an increasingly important conversation as government and industry leaders push for more college graduates in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, fields. And yet nationwide, only about half of all engineering students complete their degrees.

Orchard Bin Atv Trailer, Neil F. Leitz

All Undergraduate Projects

A local orchardist was experiencing a problem that was being caused by their lack of apple picking bin moving equipment. The orchardist needed a well-engineered solution to this lack of equipment. The solution arrived at was a five bin trailer. There were multiple design requirements for this trailer, including the device needing to be able to interface with an ATV, be able to be loaded by hand, be able to carry five bins, and not exceed a budget of $750. While perfecting the design of the trailer, a number of different disciplines were utilized, which included dynamics, kinematics, static loading …

Asme Mini Rc Baja: Drivetrain, Jason M. Moore

All Undergraduate Projects

Title and author: ASME mini RC Baja Drivetrain by Jason Moore; partner Mike Cox. (Engineering Technologies, Safety, and Construction)

Abstract/Artists Statement: The issue that this project is concerned with is how to design and build a drivetrain, steering and suspension systems for an RC car. The systems must be simple and functional. Furthermore, these systems will be designed to fit on a small chassis and not interfere with each other. They also need to be strong and durable enough to propel the car forward and maneuver through various obstacles and be built in a way that is easy to take …

Human Factors Issues And The Risk Of High Voltage Equipment: Are Standards Sufficient To Ensure Safety By Design?, Maria Chiara Leva, Roberta Pirani, Micaela De Michela, Luke Clancy

Articles

High voltage equipment is mostly designed according to technically prescriptive standards requirements based on electrical engineering safety principles. However a more risk-based approach to standards and regulation may be advisable to enable designer and user to take an active role in establishing that their installation is inherently safe. The use of Gas Insulated Switchgear (GIS) for instance is enabling the new substation to be housed indoors and condensed into around one quarter of the space. The manufacturers argue that design improvements in GIS make it virtually “maintenance free”, comply with all the relevant standards. However some of these improvements have …

Design And Experimental Investigation Of An Oxy-Fuel Combustion System For Magnetohydrodynamic Power Extraction, Manuel Johannes Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A general consensus in the scientific and research community is the need to restrict carbon emissions in energy systems. Therefore, extensive research efforts are underway to develop the next generation of energy systems. In the field of power generation, researchers are actively investigating novel methods to produce electricity in a cleaner, efficient form. Recently, Oxy-Combustion for magnetohydrodynamic power extraction has generated significant interest, since the idea was proposed as a method for clean power generation in coal and natural gas power plants. Oxy-combustion technologies have been proposed to provide high enthalpy, electrically conductive flows for direct conversion of electricity. Direct …

Automated Chess Board, Andrew Deakin, Mitch Morse

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Automated Chess Board (ACB) is a novel device that integrates the benefits of playing chess on a computer with those of playing on a physical board. It uses an array of electromagnetic coils underneath a glass playing surface that can be activated individually or in groups. This allows one or more physical wooden chess pieces with affixed permanent magnets to be moved around the board. These coils are controlled by an internal computer running a chess engine, allowing the user to play chess against the computer on a physical board.

AUtomated STroller DEsign (Asd), Evan Paull

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The purpose of this project is to design a system that will drive a jogging stroller for a user. This will allow a user a hands free jogging / walking experience. For someone who finds it too difficult to push their children around the neighborhood or down a nature trail, they now have a solution to free them up to enjoy the outdoors.

Automatic Aeroponic Indoor Garden Container, Trevor Grover, Jason Gramse, Samuel Vonniederhausern

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The objectives and goals for this senior design project are as follows:

• Objective 1: Create a garden container ideal for a small indoor living space, such as an apartment.
• Objective 2: Give the garden container the ability to provide water, nutrients, and light to the plants autonomously.
• Objective 3: Create a garden container that is energy and resource efficient.

In addition to these goals, design requirements were gathered to help achieve these objectives.

Autonomous Can Rotating System, Tyler Curtis

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Autonomous storage and retrieval of canned goods
• Automatic updating of inventory
• Bluetooth connection for easy user interface
• Grows and updates according to user’s needs
• Code easily adaptable to varying mechanical components

Making 3d Images, Bryce Walker

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Idea: Turn a mirascope into an animated 3D imaging device by replacing the top mirror and frog with an LED screen and an optical filter.

Bluetooth Low Energy Quantum Meter, Christopher Clark

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The purpose of this project is to design a quantum meter that interfaces with a mobile device. A quantum meter is a type of light sensor that measures the light in the spectrum that causes photosynthesis, which is 400 to 700 nanometers.

Controlwurx, Jacob Sorenson, Michael Wells

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Wireless controller with multiple input devices
• 18 channels of data
• 2, 20 mile range (line-of-sight)
• Input modules consist of slide potentiometers, joysticks, push buttons, and toggle switches

Digital Guitar Amp, David Chester

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Digital Signal Flow

• Equalization Filter allows user to adjust treble, middle and bass equalization
• Wave-shaping emulates the distortion of vacuum tube guitar amps
• Low shelf filter limits high order harmonics for a smoother sound
• High shelf filter eliminates DC and emulates the capacitance found in a tube amp

Embedded-Digital-Signal-Processing-Just-In-Time (Edspjit) Compiler, David N. Petrizze Iii

Electrical and Computer Engineering

A small library for configurable sound processing, minus recompiling, reflashing and the overhead of conditionals

Runs on the embedded controller, compiles the given script immediately

The returned instructions are then executed from flash memory.

Home Automation And Control System (Hacs), Daniel Weckler

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Home Automation and Control System (HACS) is a prototype implementation of "The Internet of Things." The goal of this system is to provide the customer with a user-friendly way of controlling their home using only their smartphone.

Maglock Bike Lock: The Smart Lock, Tyson Niemann

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The project is an electromagnetic self-contained bike lock. The cable is installed into the handlebars, making it concealed but easily accessible. You then are able to wrap around the object that you wish to lock it to and then touch the end against the electromagnet that is mounted to the frame. GPS tracking and location is for added anti-theft prevention and in the event you forget where you left it.

Personal Tracking Robotic Automated Camera (P-Trac), Joel A. Buttars

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• With the rise of the #selfie movement almost anyone can be an Autophotographer or Autovideographer
• The quality of the majority of these self-filmed videos is typically sub-par
• P-TRAC’s goal is to deliver a tilt and pan camera unit for Android phones to improve self-shot videos that could be loaded on social media sites such as YouTube.
• P-TRAC will allow tech-savvy YouTube vloggers to produce high quality videos without a camera man

Passive Tracking Device, Dallin Marshall

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Passive Tracking Device (PTD) is a tracking solution that can be concealed inside an ATV that will periodically transmit its location to the user’s cell phone via an SMS message.

Predator Deterrent Ear Tag, Thomas Day, Dusty Henson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

This ear tag is a simple replacement for a regular sheep tag and will help prevent predation. The tag will turn on during crepuscular hours. When activated it flashes a light to scare predators.

Project X - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Gabriel Diamond, Wesley Schaefermeyer, Samuel Vonniederhausern

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The overall goal of the project was to design controllers for a UAV that would maintain a constant altitude and bank angle. Shown below are the kinematic model and control loops that were used.

Project Iris, Alex Wallentine

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Iris is a real-time closed captioning system aimed at helping the hearing impaired see what they fail to hear. The first stage of this project was realized last year - a functioning speech-to-text smartglass system. The second stage has now been completed - a sound location feature. Knowing where a sound is coming from is something that those with good hearing take for granted. This feature alarms the user of nonverbal sounds that speech to text APIs cannot understand like sirens, dogs barking, etc. It is a critical step in the progression of Project Iris.

Rc Electric Vehicle, Chase Kunz, Cameron Sego, Austin Costley

Electrical and Computer Engineering

This project is the first stage of vehicle automation for furthering research in the field of dynamic wireless power transfer. Our project focused on the low-level control that interfaces with the vehicle. We reverse engineered the sensor network of a 2013 Ford Focus Electric and found ways to take control of the vehicle using a Tiva C microcontroller. We used a RC transmitter to control the vehicle remotely.

Solo Lift, Jacob Hansen, Jake Thornton, Ken Sills

Electrical and Computer Engineering

A voice command is received by the Raspberry Pi. The microcontroller uses this input along with input from the sensors to alter lift position.

Motorcycle Streaming Gyrocam, Jeremy Sargent, Ike Iverson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Our goal with this project was to design and make a camera that could read and compensate for lean angle changes on a sport motorcycle. As you can see from both the top center image and the middle right image, these machines reach extreme lean angles when cornering. Our design is a bike mounted solution that keeps the images that are recorded on a level horizon. This helps to prevent disorientation during review of the video of the observers. The advantages are that valuable data can be obtained for rider improvements and progress can be easily tracked.

Sweeping Impedance Probe For Space Missions, Kelton Rich, Sam Tanner, Taylor Peterson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Impedance probes have been used for decades to measure the electron density of the Ionosphere. These measurements have been extremely important due to the affect the Ionosphere has on telecommunications. Traditionally, impedance probes have gone on large satellites. The latest trend; however, is to use small cost effective Cube Satellites. The current impedance probe designs are too large and power hungry to be used on a Cube Satellite. The purpose of this project is to design a energy efficient impedance probe that will run on 400 mW and that could be flown on future Cube Satellite missions.

Tennis Serve Analyzer, Kaitlyn Christensen

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The tennis serve analyzer gets data from a magnetometer, gyroscope, and accelerometer connected to the bottom of a tennis racket. The data is then displayed on a computer to provide the user feedback on their serve. Which will allow them to improve their consistency and decrease the risk of injury.