Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Mechanized Theatre Turntable, Chloe Huiyi Chou, Ethan Lee Stroh, Ruodolf Reller Quelnat Rumbaoa, Davide Lanfranconi

Mechanical Engineering

This project aimed to create a remote-control and drive system for a theatrical turntable that was constructed by the Theatre and Dance Department of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Over the course of three quarters, the team successfully designed and manufactured a working verification prototype. This verification prototype was then tested, and the project sponsor verified that it met all specifications. The current iteration of the verification prototype can support up to a load of 1400 lbf, rotate a 12 ft diameter turntable clockwise and counterclockwise with a speed range of 1 to 4 rpm, and is able …

Multifamily Complex Smart Locks For Property Management And Tenant Security, April Mills, Allen Chen, Dana Kumamoto, Michael Cook

Mechanical Engineering

Maintaining and managing hundreds of locks and physical keys for an apartment complex can be time consuming and costly, especially when the apartments turn over to new tenants. Our goal was to develop a smart door lock that is compatible with Obodo’s management app for apartment complexes to make accessing apartments secure and simpler for tenants and easier to manage for owners.

We designed and manufactured one smart door lock that is powered with four AA batteries and utilizes a dynamic NFC device and Bluetooth technology. The board can enter a sleep mode which reduces power consumption. The dynamic NFC …

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 …

Demonstration Triple Spool Turbine And Controls, Synnovea Alaina Wood, Marco Eston Salguero, Michael Bruce Megna, Wyatt Scott Conner

Mechanical Engineering

The demonstration triple-spool turbine and controls project consisted of the conceptualization, design, analysis, build, and test of a demonstration model of three concentric driveshafts, such as those used in conventional turbofan (or power generation turbine) engines. Specifically, our team focused on building a basic, portable, mechanical model of such a driveshaft assembly, while also developing the backend firmware/control and user interface software used to control it. This model was developed with the initial intent of use in the Cal Poly engines lab with a goal of remotely controlling the motors driving the driveshaft model by means of a USB cable …

Flow Data Acquisition System, Samuel Chapman Maxwell Iv, Nathaniel Peter Werdmuller Von Elgg, Jameson Robert Spitz, Jason Jia-Shing Hu

Mechanical Engineering

Data acquisition is an essential part of the research and development process of water valves and fittings at Zurn Wilkins. In Fall 2021, Zurn Wilkins approached our senior project team with a goal of creating a modular data acquisition system that streamlines their design and testing processes for new products. Our team determined that a microcontroller-based system was the optimal way to deliver this goal and designed our system around a Raspberry Pi. We chose twelve sensors that were compatible with existing taps in the Zurn Wilkins facility. The sensors send their signal through waterproof receptacles into the Polycase waterproof …

Bike To The Future, Wanjiku Gichigi, Luisa Shu Yi Chiu, Alexander Kalman Dunn, Georgia Ann Holmes

Mechanical Engineering

Brian Higgins is a veteran with retinitis pigmentosa who enjoys biking. The motivation for this project was to design and manufacture a refined prototype of a bike attachment to assist Brian in safely biking to and from work. The customer needs, problem definition, background, design development, final design, testing, costs, and recommendations are provided in this report.

The solution for this project, as laid out in the design development section, was to design an assembly that would detect objects in the biker’s path and relays that information to them. The design incorporated a dashboard to conceal components within, protect them …

Deep Ocean Vehicle (Dov) Scientific Payload, Nichole "Nikki" T. Arm, Mason Gariepy, Brianna Roberts, Kyle C. Walsh

General Engineering

This report aims to provide technical insight into the Deep Ocean Vehicle project performed by the Barrel Eye Explorers. The project was a part of the 2021-2022 Interdisciplinary Senior Project class at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The team consisted of Nikki Arm, Mason Gariepy, Brianna Roberts, and Kyle Walsh who were engineering students in the Mechanical, Materials, General, and Industrial engineering departments, respectively. This project was sponsored by Dr. Crow White and overseen by Karla Carichner. The project was a continuation of Nikki Arm’s internship with Global Ocean Design during the Summer of 2021. The lander, Deep …

Radiology Associates Medical Scan Forecasting, Everett M. Notaro, Mitchell Carpenter, Tyler Deis, Kimberly Williams

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

After discontinuing their subscription with Shinyapps and relying on a manual forecasting process, Radiology Associates needs a new method to forecast the number and types of scans that will be executed at each site location. Radiology Associates utilizes Quinsite, which incorporates a live link to their database, as a host for all their Tableau dashboards. This project will create an accurate forecasting model utilizing complex forecasting methods to be hosted by Quinsite which is accessible by all management within Radiology Associates. To begin this process, an exponential smoothing model was created in Tableau to solidify dashboard and storyboard design. Additionally, …

Increasing Legends Salon Revenue Per Square Foot, Jacob William Andreatta, Margaret Faison Gustafson, Julia Galina Odisho, Joshua Spry Morrison

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Katie MacNamara acquired Legends Hair Salon in Atascadero, California in January of 2021. After a few months of learning to run her own business she discovered that her retail revenue per square foot was not high enough. Her goal, and the project objective, was to raise her revenue while also increasing space for her stylists. The metrics used for these objectives were revenue per square foot and the square footage of the retail areas. The beginning state metrics were 48.75 square feet of retail and a retail revenue per square foot of $2.15 with a total of six stylist stations. …

Eagle Medical Tray Denesting & Debris Removal Process, Nicholas Allen Ungefug, Noah Chavez, Susana Shu-Lin Okhuysen, Michael Augustine Pennington

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Eagle Medical Incorporated is a contract medical device packaging and sterilization company. The company purchases thermoformed medical packaging trays, which maintain the sterility of medical devices, from various manufacturers. To ensure packaging quality and to prevent cleanroom contamination, Eagle Medical inspects and sterilizes each blister tray that they order. This process is an essential non-value-added activity that creates a bottleneck. Cleanroom employees must stop packaging medical devices and attend to the processing of blister trays and packaging solutions. The blister trays arrive at Eagle’s facility in nested stacks. Vibration and movement during shipping further compresses the stacks, which makes separation …

Kinetic Energy Harvesting Device For Long Distance Thru-Hikers, Jarod Reece Lyles, Ryan William Mclaughlin, Shaw Hawkeye Hughes, David Hernandez

Mechanical Engineering

The intent of this project was to design and build a device capable of harnessing biomechanical energy from a thru-hiker to charge electronic devices. To begin, we ruled out any potential solutions that could be intrusive to the hiking experience, limiting us to a device that could be placed in a backpack.

After defining the scope of the project, we ideated upon potential designs, and chose to move forward with a rotational generator based design. Detailed analysis included both system dynamics and vibrations based models, and from this analysis we developed a mechanical design in SOLIDWORKS®️ and a custom printed …

Evaluating The Effects Of Granulated Rubber And Glass Fibers In Polymer Concrete As A Structural Material For Wafer Grinding Machines, Kevin Gabriel Kuehn, Philip Randall Streeter

Materials Engineering

Polymer concrete is a composite material used to replace cast iron and steel in wafer grinding machines for vibration damping. During the grinding and lapping processes of manufacturing silicon wafers, excessive vibrations may cause subsurface damage which requires additional polishing and reduces yield. Nine compositions containing various levels of granulated rubber and glass fibers were manufactured. CRM WRF-10 granulated rubber was examined at 0%, 5%, and 10% and Corning Cem-Fil glass fibers were added at 0%, 0.5%, and 1% by weight. Smooth-On EpoxAcast 690 epoxy resin was held constant at 16% for each composition. Crushed granite aggregate from Martin Marietta, …

Barker Bird Animatronic Senior Project Report, Marcus Monroe, Nolan Clapp, Ishan Jandaur, Jonathan Ogden

Mechanical Engineering

This document describes how our F71 Senior Design Project team developed a 3D printed, electronic bird that mimics Disneyland’s first animatronic, the Barker Bird. An animatronic is a mechanical puppet that replicates real life movement with robotic parts. Disney’s Barker Bird is a well-known animatronic that replicates a talking macaw with multiple moving systems. The final prototype completed by our team serves as a teaching tool for CAPED (Cal Poly Amusement Park Engineers and Designers) club members that are interested in the field of animated robots.

Wave Goodbye To Salt, Andy Wu, Amanda Olla, Solie Grantham, Charlie Sinclair

Mechanical Engineering

Our team of Cal Poly Mechanical Engineers ideated, designed, built, and tested a system to help combat the growing problem of widespread drought in coastal and island communities. We developed a proof-of-concept model of a wave powered, mechanical system to desalinate ocean water using a reverse osmosis process. From topical research, it was found that there are many ways to harness a portion of the huge amount of energy that the ocean provides. While large scale ocean water desalination plants are already in operation, smaller scale desalination units powered by ocean waves are largely underdeveloped. Our relatively small and inexpensive …

Heating Lanyard To Warm Body Core, Cole Bunker, Spencer Alonge, Tyler Elsom, Matthew Hyland

Mechanical Engineering

Calculated Industries, a company that specializes in construction products headquartered in Carson City, Nevada, has sponsored the Heating Lanyard to Warm Body Core senior project. The objective of the project was to design and manufacture a body core heating device that will be used by construction workers to keep warm in cold environments. The goal is to create a device that is safe, comfortable, and temperature controllable. Our team consists of four mechanical engineering students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Research was performed to analyze current products in the market, analyze how to best provide heat to …

Insulated Solar Electric Cooker With Phase Change Materials, Weijun Zhao, Jake Lung, Owen Chu, Sarah Melzer

Mechanical Engineering

This Senior Project Report documents the development and design process of the Insulated Solar Electric Cooker with a Phase Change Material (ISEC w/ PCM). In this project, we developed a PCM assembly that can be integrated into an existing ISEC system which utilizes two 100 W solar panels. This report details the use of a nitrate salt solution of 60% NaNO3 and 40% KNO3 and demonstrates its potential as a viable form of thermal storage solution for cooking. We found that only 1kg of PCM is able to retain its heat for around 5 hours after power removal and believe …

Insulated Solar Electric Cooker With Solid Thermal Storage, Eric M. Cortes, Andy M. Mccombs, Dominick Trageser, Nami Suzuki

Mechanical Engineering

This Senior Project report outlines the design for our senior project under the Mechanical Engineering department of California Polytechnic State University. Insulated solar electric cookers (ISEC) are a relatively novel and exciting solution to the ethical, environmental, and medical issues associated with the conventional cooking methods - burning of biomass and charcoal - practiced in nonindustrial countries around the world. ISECs use solar energy input from a solar panel to cook food within an insulated chamber and have been researched and developed by Dr. Peter Schartz and his research group over the past several years. However, our target users expressed …

Shallow-Water Wind Turbine Foundation, Andrew Walker, Nico Nani, James Cusanelli, Zachary Dunkelberger

Mechanical Engineering

Over the 2021-2022 academic year, we, the Shallow Water Wind Turbine Foundation senior project team, designed, manufactured, and tested a fixed bottom, sand mounted turbine foundation for the Cal Poly Wind Power Club’s Collegiate Wind Competition turbine. The foundation was restricted to certain material, installation, and geometric constraints outlined in this report, and needed to support the turbine under operating conditions including 22 m/s wind speeds. The design was analyzed using primarily a bearing capacity geotechnical analysis to determine final geometry and weight. The foundation was then manufactured using welded, custom carbon steel parts.

The foundation was inspected for geometric …

Brush Clearing Trimming Device: Drivetrain, Dallas Russell, Nathan Small, Alex Imbery, Jordan Aguana

Mechanical Engineering

We, the “DT Inc.” team, have been tasked with the redesign of the drivetrain of an electric brush clearing tool created for trail and roadside use. We started the design process by doing research on the currently available products and determining their strengths and shortcomings. We also tested the prototype given to us by our sponsor, and listened to our sponsor about what he liked about his design and what he wanted changed. We resolved from this research that the most important improvements that we needed to make were to improve the traction, reduce the speed and increase the torque, …

Baker/Koob Final Report: Solar Solution For Mini Mars Rover, Jonathan Cederquist, Cole Korchek, Derick Louie, Michaella Ochotorena, Collin Petersen

Mechanical Engineering

This project focused on designing, building, and testing a functional prototype of a collapsible solar array on the mini Mars rover being developed by client and sponsor, Mr. Rich Murray. Although many previous collapsible solar arrays have been deployed for space missions, the previous solar-powered Mars rovers only deployed their arrays once upon landing. This solar array will be able to collapse and deploy multiple times to allow for greater rover mobility and stability when the rover is not charging. This system is critical to the success of the rover project because it provides power without which the rover cannot …

Model-Based Design Of An Optimal Lqg Regulator For A Piezoelectric Actuated Smart Structure Using A High-Precision Laser Interferometry Measurement System, Grant P. Gallagher

Master's Theses

Smart structure control systems commonly use piezoceramic sensors or accelerometers as vibration measurement devices. These measurement devices often produce noisy and/or low-precision signals, which makes it difficult to measure small-amplitude vibrations. Laser interferometry devices pose as an alternative high-precision position measurement method, capable of nanometer-scale resolution. The aim of this research is to utilize a model-based design approach to develop and implement a real-time Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) regulator for a piezoelectric actuated smart structure using a high-precision laser interferometry measurement system to suppress the excitation of vibratory modes.

The analytical model of the smart structure is derived using the …

Development Of A Body Weight Reduction Algorithm In Micro-Gravity Treadmills™, Alexander Hibbert

Master's Theses

Boost Treadmills™, a company specializing in the use of differential air-pressure (DAP) technology in the realm of exercise and rehabilitation, is developing their second-generation micro-gravity treadmill™ named the Boost 2. This machine will allow individuals in all types of fitness environments to move and exercise at a fraction of their normal body weight, reducing the impact forces on lower body extremities and allowing for accelerated returns to activity.

The purpose of this thesis was to create an algorithm to be implemented on the Boost 2 that related the percentage of body weight reduction of a user to a required pressure …

Cal Poly Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge 2022, Sangmin Sung, Eddy Rodriguez, Travis Welch, Jeremy Baechler, Kevin Pauls

Mechanical Engineering

In this report, the Featherweight Cycles design team puts forth the scope and overview of their design project, discusses background research and competitor analysis, and presents the project’s final design and manufacturing plans. The overall goal of this project is to fabricate and compete in the Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge, hosted by the National Fluid Power Association. To better define the design process, the team researched previous year’s designs from Cal Poly, as well as winning designs from the last two years to form a baseline of knowledge about competing schools’ designs. After researching multiple design paths, Featherweight Cycles chose …

Utilization Of Resin-Based Additive Manufacturing For Investment Casting, Matthew Frost, Isaiah Hong

Mechanical Engineering

Dr. Xuan Wang, an Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering (IME) professor at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, has sponsored the resin-based 3D printing investment cast senior project. The objective of the project was to thoroughly research the process and document the findings of using a resin-based 3D printed part as the pattern for investment casting. While this manufacturing process is not necessarily a new idea, the lack of technical research and documentation limits its ability to be reproducible. The research portion of the senior project included analyzing the limitations to the printing/casting manufacturing process. Measurements of part thicknesses, hole …

Development Of A Prototype Ball-And-Plate Balancing Platform, Scott J. Mangin

Master's Theses

Ball-and-plate balancing platforms have been utilized throughout academia to further understanding of nonlinearities that can occur when applying control algorithms to nonholonomic and underactuated systems. The objective of this thesis is to build upon an existing ball-and-plate balancing platform used in the Intro to Mechatronics class and create a robust platform system that can be utilized by future students to test various controller designs derived from MATLAB/Simulink®. The ball-and-plate platform design uses a myriad of sensors to track the system components in real time: a resistive touch panel is used to track the position of the ball on the plate, …

Mechanical Horse Project, Hernan Ramirez Resendiz, Ben Apt

Mechanical Engineering

This document outlines our senior design project for the Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering Department on behalf of Jack’s Helping Hand. As a team of two Mechanical Engineering students, we developed a structure that can support a rider and can move in three degrees of freedom to model the gait patterns of a horse. This senior project will be continued by another group that will focus on electronics and implement the motors that will induce motion on the structure that our team has built. We collected baseline data by attaching an iPhone to a horse and used that motion to compare …

Effect Of Indentation On Sandwich Composite Structure Mechanical Behavior, Marius V. Jatulis

Master's Theses

Composite sandwich structures are prevalent in engineering applications where high strength to weight ratios are critical. A composite sandwich includes the addition of a core material between two composite face sheets to increase ultimate stress in compression and bending loading cases. The performance of many composite sandwich structure configurations is well understood in the undamaged case. This analysis examines a type of damage, low velocity indentation, and determines the effect on mechanical behavior. The scope of the analysis includes manufacturing sandwich composite structures, creating indentation in the composite, and testing the sandwich composite structure. The mechanical behavior of the composite …

Baja Sae Semi-Active Suspension, Philip Pang, Stassa Cappos, Harrison Hirsch, John Deboer

Mechanical Engineering

This Final Design Review (FDR) Report outlines the senior design project of the Baja SAE Semi-Active Suspension group, which includes mechanical and electrical engineering students at California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo. This document compiles the Baja SAE Semi-Active Suspension senior project team’s research and development of a semi-active suspension system for the Cal Poly Racing Baja SAE racecar. The goal is to design a system that adjusts the damping constant of the racecar’s spring-damper suspension while the vehicle is being driven in order to improve vehicle dynamics and driver comfort. None of the semi-active dampers that exist on …

Astm Test Fixture For Spinal Screws, Sarah K. Pickering, Matthew W. Rowen, Kaajal N. Khanna, Thomas A. Sunding

Biomedical Engineering

This document is an overview report of the Cal Poly Senior Project ASTM Test Fixture for SeaSpine orthopedic bone screws. The main application of orthopedic screws is to fasten implants directly to the bone structure, enhancing structural integrity. Testing for breaking angle, insertion torque, removal torque, axial pullout strength, and self-tapping force as specified in the ASTM F543 Annexes provides the FDA with vital screw mechanics and ensures manufacturing uniformity. The test system is comprised of custom and off the shelf components allowing for interchangeability, in case of part failure, and a low overall cost. It is mechanically capable of …

System Performance Model And Control System For A Small-Scale Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine, Niko Banks

Master's Theses

Predicting the performance of wind turbines is a key part of the turbine design process and operation, as predictive models play a large role in determining potential power output and efficiency at different operating conditions to help maximize production. On small-scale wind turbines performance models become more complex, as the rotor aerodynamic performance depends not only on the tip speed ratio, but also on the flow Reynolds number. An accurate predictive model that includes this behavior on small-scale wind turbines can be used to find the optimal operating conditions for power output, and is also a critical component of the …