Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Ultrasonic Mapping Needle, Katie R. Stone, Stu Bembenek

Mechanical Engineering

When gaining access to a vein or organ for the purpose of ablation or other reasons, the common procedural method of entry is to use the Seldinger technique. This has been the standard entry procedure since its introduction in 1953, and the technique has not been modified during this time. While effective, it is prone to complication as it relies solely on the operator's precision and experience. It is our task and goal to develop a modifying kit for this procedure that would aid the operator in this process. It would make use of mapping technology and standard products used …

Mechanical Metamaterials, Brent A. Peluso, Oliver T. Parker

Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical metamaterials are an emerging design strategy aimed at tailoring lattice structures to achieve specific properties such as negative Poisson’s ratios and guiding wave propagation. These metamaterials have received increasing attention from various application domains, including medical devices, aerospace, automobile, and infrastructure. The scope of this project is to vary a single lattice parameter and quantify its effect on the structural properties of the given 3D lattice.

Planar Element Alignment System, Benjamin E. Lavigna, Benny F. Cruz, Samuel Gierhan, Jacob Q. Henriksen

Mechanical Engineering

Precise alignment to the micron level is a necessity for microfluidic/micromechanical devices to function as designed. Because of this, a micro-alignment device was commissioned by Professor Hans Mayer on behalf of the Cal Poly Microfluidics Laboratory. Prototype creation was bounded by a set of requirements including, ability to align PDMS & Silicon wafer halves to ± 10 microns, total process speed of three minutes, and total budget of $3000. Some major design hurdles included an ability to verify alignment, possible non-planar alignment pieces, and an inability to contact any point on the face of the alignment pieces after bonding treatment. …

Northrop Grumman Collaboration Project, Nikkia Rae Psomas-Sheridan, Santiago Robles, Ben Elkayam, Benjamin Ulfhake

Mechanical Engineering

The Northrop Grumman Collaboration Project (NGCP) is a collaborative club project sponsored by Northrop Grumman for the students of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (CPSLO) and Cal Poly Pomona (CPP) to create a fleet of vehicles to aid in the simulated rescue of stranded hiker. The CPSLO club is responsible for delivering an autonomous flight vehicle that can suppress a fire and retrieve a payload. Mechanical Design Team of the CPSLO team was responsible for the design of the frame, electronics housing, and payload and fire suppression systems.

Three Dimensional Cfd Simulation Model With Experimental Validation Of Silica Gel–Water Pair Adsorption Cooling Bed, Hesham Safwat, Taher Halawa

Mechanical Engineering

In this paper, a three-dimensional full simulation model of a solar-driven adsorption cooling system integrated with user-defined functions (UDF) is successfully validated with a manufactured adsorption chamber filled with silica-gel type A. model is validated on the desorption phase with a maximum deviation error of 1.7%. Temperature with adsorption contours are shown for more understanding of the heat flow with adsorption behaviour inside the chamber in all directions. The maximum temperature at the desorption phase is reached after 300 seconds at fins area, and adsorption maximum uptake reached 0.16 kg/kg at fins wall but reached from 0.13 to 0.14 kg/kg …

Callaway Measurement Device, Andre S. Fisher, Roman Hays, Blake Sousa, Grant Gabrielson

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this document is to illustrate the Callaway Measurement Device senior project from start to finish. The challenge given to the team was to update and improve a gauge used by Callaway employees to measure the loft, lie, and face angle of their full spectrum of golf clubs. Once the team understood how the pre-existing gauge operates, the team conducted background research into other technologies that could improve the gauge. The team decided to digitalize the device amongst other tweaks to reduce error. Because the CAD files were not available for the pre-existing device, the team began reverse …

Gasifier Wall Wash Manifold, Ashley Sieu Che, Gintaras Julius Baipsys, Peyton Joseph Archibald, Michael Thomas Kieran

Mechanical Engineering

The objective of our Gasifier Wall Wash Manifold Project is to design three different manifolds that will uniformly distribute water on the inner diameter of a pressure vessel. Also, the distributed water should completely cover the circumference of the inner walls. From extensive research of current solutions as well as the conduction of technical analyses, we were able to produce three designs that would be able to meet our engineering specifications. Time constraints led to the fabrication of one manifold design along with a test rig. With a fully functional test rig, we saw positive results from our design verification …

Locking Solar Tracking Bushing, Benjamin James Reed, Andrew Donald Maas, Angel Navarro-Iniguez, John Vincent Bruner

Mechanical Engineering

The contents of this final design review (FDR) outline the progress made by a team of four mechanical engineering students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo to solve the problem of torsional galloping in solar tracker panels since the preliminary design review. The project proposed by the sponsor, Christian Friedrich, on behalf of ARaymond is a design for a friction based braking system integrated into a redesigned bushing.

The CDR contains details about the system design, the design justification, the manufacturing plan, and design verification plan. In the system design section, the four manufacturing subsystems (bushing mount, actuation, …

Novel Hitch Cargo Cart, Cesilio Sanchez Ramirez, Lance Haidet, Richard Lontoc, Tyler Selinka

Mechanical Engineering

This document presents the engineering design process used to develop, manufacture, and test a new and improved iteration of a hitch cart prototype. This process was performed by a team of four mechanical engineering seniors as part of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo’s senior design pathway. The goal of this project was to develop a sturdy and reliable iteration of our sponsor’s hitch cart prototype, that integrated the functionality of a vehicle hitch cargo platform and that of a height adjustable cargo cart into a single streamlined and easy to use product. This design could be used by …

Tree Climbing Limb Saw, Andrew E. Bray, Parker Tenney, Drew M. Robles, Aimee T. Chiem

Mechanical Engineering

This document is the comprehensive report for the Tree Climbing Limb Saw Senior Project. The purpose of the Tree Climbing Limb Saw project, completed by mechanical engineers Andrew Bray, Aimee Chiem, Drew Robles, and Parker Tenney, is to remove low-hanging branches (<15 >ft) to prevent forest fires from travelling up into the canopy, where wind can carry embers for miles. An RC car was heavily modified to create a solution for this problem. A chainsaw was also mounted to deal with the cutting part of the problem. Creating a project which aims to solve this problem is a great step …

Novelty Ice Cream Assembly Prototype, Mason Sylvester, Logan Williamson, Alvaro Martinez, Adin Gilman-Cohen

Mechanical Engineering

Cool Beans USA is a novelty ice cream startup company founded by Keith Zachow. In the winter of 2022, our team began working with Mr. Zachow to develop a machine to automate parts of the production process for his product. This product consists of two hemispherical ice-cream cone shell halves filled with soft serve ice cream and pressed together. The assembled pods are around the size and shape of a small walnut and are intended to be sold in stores as a frozen finger food. At the time of project inception, this product was in its early stages and was …

Rotating Backing Brush, Caleb Savard, David Dalal, Max Allred, Mathis Weyrich

Mechanical Engineering

In the final steps of GAF’s shingle production process, small asphalt particles called fines are applied. Some fines adhere well to the shingle sheet, while others temporarily stick only to fall off the sheet further down the manufacturing line. As a result, the shingle plant floor is covered in fines that have fallen due to vibrations and gravity. The technicians and engineers at GAF want a cleaner working environment and to potentially reuse the loose fines. We are a senior project team that solved this problem by designing a system to remove and collect loose fines. In this document, the …

Baby Soothing Device, Grace Kalene Mekrut, Matteo Gozzini, Miles Angel Ibarra, Christian Joel Roberts

Mechanical Engineering

This document is the official final design review for the Baby Soothing Device. This product is intended to help families sleep throughout the night by allowing a baby to be soothed back to sleep without constant and direct parental interaction. It is maintained by Mechanical Engineering students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo for Dustin Yoder, the project sponsor. The purpose of this document is to present the design process from ideation to finished design in great enough detail that its manufacturing procedure may be replicated if desired. This document further explains all the research, testing, and benchmarks …

Investigating The Performance Of A Novel Multi-Element Airfoil Concept Using Numerical Analysis, Ahmed Elbaz

Mechanical Engineering

Separation control is one of the trending topics recently for Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) applications, flow separation that occur on the suction side of an airfoil is a major limitation for VAWTs starting and power coefficient; passive control of flow separation has been attracting wind energy research community recently. The principle objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of the multi-element airfoil on the aerodynamic characteristics at wide range of angles of attack at a Reynolds number of 140,000. The multi element airfoil modification has been implemented by replacing the baseline airfoil with two airfoil members within …

Moon Rocker: Eva Sample Bag And Dispenser, Birk D. Smith, Albert J. Kasinski, Christian Clephan

Mechanical Engineering

NASA’s next mission to the moon (Artemis) requires a device to dispense bags for holding and collecting rock samples on the lunar surface. The device must be lightweight, easy to use with an astronaut suit, and capable of withstanding the moon’s harsh environment. Our team has designed and revised several prototype dispensers to accomplish this challenge. Through testing and observations made while building our structural prototype, changes were made to build a more durable and usable dispenser. This led to our verification prototype, which was constructed with a carbon fiber frame and aluminum, or 3D printed smaller components. After manufacturing …

Sunsation’S Solar Powered Picnic Table, Michelle M. Barnett, Christopher Barber, Casey Durham, David Mason

Mechanical Engineering

Team SunSation is an interdisciplinary senior design project group that was tasked with developing a semi-permanent seating area for Cal Poly's electrical engineering courtyard. The EE courtyard is populated with plastic folding tables and chairs that are slowly falling apart. Dale Dolan, the head of the EE department, requested that a table design be developed that incorporates the use of solar panels. The addition of the solar panels to the table would help promote clean renewable energy as well as provide shade to those sitting in the courtyard.

The solution that SunSation arrived at is broken up into mechanical/structural, electrical, …

8 Dof Quadrupedal Hopping Robot, Clayton T. Elwell, John Bennett, Tyler Mccue, Daniel Munic

Mechanical Engineering

The goal of our senior project was to fabricate an eight degree of freedom (DOF) prototypical quadrupedal robot, develop a controller than commands the quadruped to repeatedly jump 10 cm in the air, and fabricate a modular test stand to safely deploy our controller on the quadruped. The creation of a functional quadruped will bring attention to Dr. Siyuan Xing and Charlie Refvem’s research group, Cal Poly Legged Robots, and will give future Cal Poly undergraduate and graduate students a learning tool to explore dynamic control of biomimetic robotic systems.

Over the course of our senior project, we successfully manufactured …

Coil Quick (Rv Sewer Hose Compressor) Device, Arturo Guijosa-Ruiz, David M. Bourgoin

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this design project is to design, build, and test an RV sewer hose compactor device that can be used by the project sponsor and marketed to other RV owners. The goal of the RV sewer hose compactor device is to mechanically compress an RV sewer hose from its fully extended length to its fully compressed and storable state. Since a prototype device has already been developed, this project will aim to improve the prototype design to make it smaller, quicker, quieter, and more durable. Additionally, we improved the device to make it more user friendly and have …

Mars Rover Structure, Ethan Nikcevich, Justin Marhoefer, Will Kish, Brenden Billing

Mechanical Engineering

Our project is the third iteration of a design to create a small Mars rover. Our main challenge was to change the existing rover structure into something that could survive the harsh conditions of Mars. This meant altering the design so that it could resist the large temperature fluctuations while still maintaining the structural stability and interface to support driving functions and the projects of the other rover teams. Our team accomplished this goal by altering the design of the existing rocker bogey from completely 3D printed to a tube and joint system. The longer portions of the rocker bogey …

Interactive Lego Girl Scout Arm, Christopher Suzuki, Emi Okuyama, Bryson Shores, Karina Sandoval

Mechanical Engineering

This Senior Project Report document outlines the senior design project for Girl Scouts of California’s Central Coast (GSCCC) led by a team of four Mechanical Engineering students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The project encompasses the researching, designing, prototyping, and testing of a LEGO robotic arm for the Girl Scouts to learn more about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and provide support to each Girl Scouts cookie sales in their stores. Their goal was to build a LEGO robotic arm that will interact with customers at the Girl Scout stores and promote the girl scouts' interest …

Mmteg Heatsink Design, Peyton Nienaber, Kadin Feldis, Alec Savoye, Jack Waeschle

Mechanical Engineering

In this document, Cal Poly Senior Design Team F16 presents a summary of its work developing a suitable heatsink for Gas Technology Institute’s Methane Mitigation Thermoelectric Generator. After several months of iterating between experimental testing and simulated heat transfer, a suitable prototype was selected for use in further refining simulation parameters. This was called the structural prototype and it allowed Team F16 to confirm several remaining unknowns relating to component thermal conductivity. All documentation of this process can be found in Preliminary, Critical, and Interim Design Review documents (PDR, CDR, IDR), included in this report. Having a realistic model …

Mtb Daq - Mountain Bike Data Acquisition System, Theodore J. Philliber, Ronan M. Shaffer, Dylan M. Ruiz, John M. Ringrose

Mechanical Engineering

Mountain bike suspensions systems are set up and tuned based only on qualitative, ‘feeling’-based metrics. The MTB DAQ, sponsored by Dr. Joseph Mello with the Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering Department, is a data acquisition system we developed to improve suspension tuning with a data-driven approach. The system mounts to a bicycle frame and has sensors that measure vibration and travel speed to characterize the bike’s motion. While similar systems exist, they cost in the thousands of dollars range and are very specific to individual bike geometry. Our system was designed to be more affordable to the average rider as well …

Acoustic Release And Receiver System, Sebastien Danthinne, Carlos E. Otero, Joseph R. Lyons, Reagan M. Lawson, Lily G. De Torres

Mechanical Engineering

To design and build an acoustic release and receiver system, our team performed extensive
background research, developed thoughtful concepts of potential designs, performed ideation,
and constructed multiple prototypes. After constructing both a conceptual and structural
prototype, our team began updating the structural prototype to meet requirements expected of the
verification prototype. After completing the verification prototype, our team entered the testing
stage of the project. The electronics housings were pressure tested to determine if any leaks
would occur, the Dyneema rope was tensile tested to verify the system could withstand affected
loads, and the time to re-spool the device was …

Mono Ski Trainer, Alexander Scott Hinerman, Shayla Anne Schoensee, Carson Rinkenberger, Barrett L. Osborne

Mechanical Engineering

The intent of this Final Design Report document is to provide the final design of a mechanical engineering senior project to our client and user Ethan Scott. The aforementioned project is a mono ski at-home trainer carried out by a group of students attending California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo over one academic year. This document contains the previously shared reports Statement of Work (SOW), Preliminary Design Review (PDR), and Critical Design Review (CDR) that provide background and details of our team’s design process to reach our final design. The as-built design and evaluation is described in the Final …

Universal Tread For Power Wheelchairs, Daniel Ceja Gonzalez, Ryan Scarcella, Aaron Rocha, Brian Song

Mechanical Engineering

This project was centered around developing a fully independently driven powered wheelchair attachment that would allow users to traverse non-wheelchair accessible terrain. The initial goal was to create a full-scale model that would allow our user to use and test as a prototype to get over curbs and some light dirt off-roading. However, as the project progressed and limitations of time and money came up, this project was rescoped to a quarter-scale proof of concept model. The goal of this new project was to create a prototype that would carry a scaled-down load and traverse a scaled-down curb. This was …

Picnic Table Solar Powered Shade, Louis Gerny, Esmeralda Gonzalez, Connor Gigone, Ryan Dean

Mechanical Engineering

The Electrical Engineering department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo has an outdoor courtyard that, until recently, was lacking in accommodations for student studying, group meetings, or simple leisure. A group of four mechanical engineering majors, “The Benchwarmers,” were tasked by Dale Dolan with the construction and installation of a picnic table to fulfil these needs. More specifically, Dr. Dolan also requested that the table provide off-the-grid power to charge student’s devices.

This report details the design, manufacturing, and testing of a solar powered picnic table. The table was designed to accommodate up to seven users, including one …

Bongoties Tying Machine Design, Zachary Stednitz, Tori Bornino, Jackson Mclaughlin, Shea Charkowsky

Mechanical Engineering

BongoTies are a reusable tool for cable management or general fastening, consisting of a strong rubber band attached to a bamboo pin. BongoTies is a company founded by our sponsor Tim Petros that sells its product on a variety of popular shopping sites, such as Amazon and eBay. Currently, the assembly process is to hand-tie the rubber band to the pin for every BongoTie. This is too slow to keep up with demand, requires a skilled worker with good dexterity, and can cause pain or injury if the rubber band snaps back onto the worker’s fingers. In this senior project …

Solar Solution For Mini-Rover, Michaella Ochotorena, Derick Louie, Jonathan Cederquist, Collin Petersen, Cole Korchek

Mechanical Engineering

This project focuses 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 …

Therapeutic Mechanical Horse, Cade M. Liberty, Aleya Dolorfino, Peter Philips, Zuzanna Dominik, Luke Watts

Mechanical Engineering

Jack's Helping Hand and its hippotherapy participants required a device to serve as an alternative to a live horseback riding experience that could also increase the range of riders. This would provide more clients with equine-assisted therapy that has proven to better the lives of people with both physical and mental disabilities. Horses can be unpredictable, tall, and sometimes anxiety-inducing, especially for new riders. Our group’s aim was to develop a mechanical horse that will be able to reduce these issues for equine therapy centers and the riders they help. When a rider gets to practice sitting on the horse …

Total Sky Imager Project, Ryan D. Maier, Benjamin Jack Forest, Kyle X. Mcgrath

Mechanical Engineering

Solar farms like the Gold Tree Solar Farm at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo have difficulty delivering a consistent level of power output. Cloudy days can trigger a significant drop in the utility of a farm’s solar panels, and an unexpected loss of power from the farm could potentially unbalance the electrical grid. Being able to predict these power output drops in advance could provide valuable time to prepare a grid and keep it stable. Furthermore, with modern data analysis methods such as machine learning, these predictions are becoming more and more accurate – given a sufficient data set. The …