Acoustics, Dynamics, and Controls Commons^™

Me3329 Modular Phonograph Gearbox, Garrett Andrik Leighton, Preston Robert Hupe, Gavin Carter Ebner, Andrew Renato Reyes

Mechanical Engineering

The Mechanical Engineering Department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), seeks to develop a laboratory tool allowing students to reinforce concepts of gears for Mechanical Systems Design (ME329). Some current laboratories do not provide students with hands-on interaction, and the department lacks equipment and documentation to support a standardized lab. With ME329 expanding from ten to fifteen weeks, there is an opportunity to create a physical gearbox design lab allowing students to reinforce lecture material in engaging ways, while standardizing student learning. This senior project is presented and sponsored by Professor Alan Zhang. It will be …

Peltier-Based Hydration Accumulation Terminal (P.H.A.T.), Jenner Mucher, Ethan Pace, Renee Robolledo, Sabrina Luo, Taehoon Lee, Tarsem Pal

Mechanical Engineering

The objective of this project is to design an innovative potable water dispenser capable of safely delivering hot, ambient, and chilled water on demand for human lander missions. The system will support astronauts’ hydration and food rehydration needs while minimizing mass, power, maintenance, and contamination risks in microgravity and partial-gravity environments. Current spacecraft dispensers, such as the International Space Station (ISS) system, provide only heated water and have limited temperature control, cleaning accessibility, and microbial resilience. Building on NASA heritage designs and lessons learned from the ISS Potable Water Dispenser, this project advances a lighter, simpler, and more energy-efficient concept …

Mass - Modular Acoustic Suppression System, Julia Megargle, Michael A. Milner, Lucas Kaemmererer, Jonathan Corvera, Gabriel Choi, Emmi Cayer

Mechanical Engineering

The Modular Acoustic Suppression System (MASS) is a mass tuned damper that reverberates a membrane atop a cavity to absorb select acoustic frequencies produced by the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) within NASA's Artemis Human Lander. The height of the reverberation chamber is adjusted to mitigate a range of varying tonal frequencies within the human lander.

Desktop Dynamometer, Ryan Boister, Zachary Chung, Molly Koretz, Tyler Lum

Mechanical Engineering

This senior project presents the design and development of a desktop dynamometer for measuring the performance of small electric motors. The system integrates torque and speed measurement with data acquisition hardware to calculate power output and evaluate motor performance. The compact and cost-effective design provides a practical platform for engineering education, testing, and performance characterization of small-scale power systems.

Cal Poly Fluid Powered Vehicle Challenge 2025/2026, Ethan Malachi Nejame Zeiset, Christian Anthony Cuamani, Daniel Chacon-Bizarro, Marcus Minera, Bradley Hansell

Mechanical Engineering

In this Final Design Report, the Cal Poly Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge Contending Team competed in Sun Hydraulics’ 2026 Fluid Powered Vehicle Challenge. The objective of the competition is to expose college students to the fluid power sector, the “hidden giant” of the engineering industry. Specifically, student teams are tasked with the development of a human-powered, fluid-driven vehicle for use in various competitive settings. The team prioritized the optimization of an existing prototype for simplicity, ease of maintenance, and reliability during the competition. The existing prototype exhibited issues related to the main frame’s deflection under load, a lack of gear …

Stakblocks, Micah Satoshi Inoshita, Ava Rose Doerschlag, Cody J. Ellis, Zach M. Lawton, Fernando M. Nalin, Nicholas Humphrey, Aiden Reed Anderson, Sara Maya Suratkal

Mechanical Engineering

Researchers developing sustainable building materials from agricultural waste need a faster way to prototype and evaluate small-scale samples under controlled temperature and pressure before scaling to production. Sponsored by Professor Pete Schwartz of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, whose work focuses on sustainable technology for developing communities, this project aims to create a prototype testing device for researchers studying agricultural-waste bricks, with the University of Malawi as a potential future testing partner. The final product is intended to inform improved future designs rather than serve as a production-ready device, ultimately supporting the development of affordable, sustainable building materials for communities …

Torsional Vibration Kit Simulator (Tks), Joseph Thachet, Luca Lawson, Ryan Ota, Otis Mcloughlin

Mechanical Engineering

The goal of this project was to create torsional vibration on a shaft while limiting axial and radial vibration. To do this an eddy current brake was used to slow down a rotating shaft. The electromagnets used to create the eddy currents are able to be turned on and off at a frequency produced by a function generator. This power cycling of the electromagnets creates an alternating braking force thereby inducing torsional vibration while limiting the other two vibration types

Brush Seal Cycling Test Rig, Angelo J. Reis, Neil M. Bedagkar, Max A. Soury, Eoin K. Lenham

Mechanical Engineering

To prevent backflow from the high pressure compressor stages of their gas turbines to lower pressure regions, Solar Turbines utilizes brush seals along their driveshafts. Due to manufacturing limitations, no shaft is perfectly symmetric about its rotating axis, leading to orbiting that creates asymmetric friction on the shaft through rubbing. With this biased application of friction comes a hotspot on one side of the shaft, causing bowing of the shaft and cascading into an amplified vibrational response. Our goal is to gather data on this phenomenon and offer a potential solution.

Hydropower Collegiate Competition, Aiden D. Foster, Devon Bountry, Joanna Vo, Timothy Rinker, Amanda Rodriguez, Minh Nguyen, Eli Haushalter, Sophie Watkinson, Maiya Holton, Breanne Evans

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly SLO HCC team presents a feasibility study and engineering design review package for retrofitting the non-powered Ritschard Dam in Colorado into a hydroelectric facility as part of the 2025 Hydropower Collegiate Competition. Through a rigorous and multi-staged assessment of plausible dam sites in the western US, the team has chosen the Ritschard Dam in Colorado to implement an electromechanical component designed to accommodate a large range of flowrates stemming from a large variance in upper reservoir capacity due to geographical and climate effects. The team evaluated non-powered dams based on technical feasibility, electric grid proximity, power generation …

Conversational Social Robot, Julianna M. Christopoulos, Mackenzie Goldman, Cece E. Hujanen, Jared Hunter

Mechanical Engineering

Background: Social robots are used in various settings to reduce burden on human workers and expand opportunities for people in need of assistance.

Challenge: Design a humanoid robot head and torso capable of holding conversations and interacting with a user using a LLM and motion. Conversations are limited to discussing Cal Poly resources and opportunities with visitors to the Bently Research Center on campus.

Pendulum Wave Generator, Abigail Jocelyn Romero, Paul Staley, Wendy Dong, Kyle Schumacher

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly Mechanical Vibrations Laboratory (Vibes Lab) serves to educate and excite students about mechanical vibrations through hands-on experiments. While the lab contains several relatively complicated technical experiments, it lacks simple demonstrations with immediate visual interest to appeal to audiences with less technical backgrounds. Because of this, faculty desired a fun and interactive demonstration project that could be operated with no prior training. The project chosen for this is a Pendulum Wave Generator which is a set of multiple pendulums with differing lengths that combine to create complex and observable patterns over time. This project was completed by a …

Hitch Cart “Landing Gear”, Rebekah White, Jose Raygoza, Randy Hernandez, Brandon Leon

Mechanical Engineering

This report aims to allow our sponsor, to review our design process of the Hitch Cart Landing Gear Prototype. In the design overview section of this report, we discuss the primary design modifications we made to the wheel mechanism of the existing hitch cart prototype, including the addition of the ACME screws and the folding brackets. This allows our sponsor to see the intended improvements made to the past prototype and understand the primary goal of our project. Then, in the implementation section, we cover the entire manufacturing process to allow our sponsor to understand what manufacturing steps must be …

Quarter Car Suspension Model, Jack Miller, Alexander Eckhardt, Jonathan Lam, Max Gardenswartz

Mechanical Engineering

Dr. Porumamilla, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Cal Poly, needs a way to demonstrate the concept of base excitation to the mechanical engineering students in the Mechanical Vibrations (ME 318) Lab. A mass-spring-damper model represented by a quarter-car suspension has been selected to represent this concept. A team of four students was assigned to design such a model as a senior design project. This document will explain the testing procedures, how were the results, and if they achieved our requirements. Furthermore, the document will explain how we assemble our product and manufacturing steps. Additionally, Critical Design Report (CDR) design changes …

Thermoacoustic Refrigerator, Rees Phillip Verleur, Colleen Farrell Mccandless, Anders Matthew Bjork, Yashraj Ashwinkumar Solanki

Mechanical Engineering

In the Thermoacoustic Refrigerator Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering senior project, we designed, built, and tested a thermoacoustic refrigeration system which achieved an average temperature difference of 11.0°C. Our system consists of a resonator tube with an instrumented stack, mounted onto a base with a speaker and amplifier. An external power supply and function generator provide the power and signal to the system, and a thermocouple reader displays the temperature of the top and bottom of the stack. The system consistently achieved a significant temperature difference between the two ends of the stack in various ambient conditions, and it was quick …

Treadmill Platform For Quadrupedal Robots, Baxter J. Bartlett, Jack F. Butler, Phillip A. Shafik, Tarun S. Ganamur

Mechanical Engineering

Cal Poly Legged Robots, led by Professor Refvem and Professor Xing, has been leading Cal Poly’s attempts to simulate, produce, and test their legged robots. The initial testing of the locomotion of these robots can be dangerous to the robot since any bugs in the code could cause the robot to fall over and harm itself. Our responsibility as a team was to deliver a portable platform for testing the locomotion capabilities containing a fall prevention mechanism. In short, we have designed a platform for this purpose that consists of a treadmill surrounded by a wheeled chassis with a system …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Interactive Lego Girl Scout Arm, Chris 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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Adjustable Height Pedestal Grinder Stand, Josef Zagorski, Zachary Wedel, Michael Sitar, Daniel Zevenbergen

Mechanical Engineering

Pedestal grinders are one of the most common machines found in machine shops today. The current industry standard for mounting a grinder is on a fixed single pillar, cast iron pedestal. A fixed pedestal allows for no vertical adjustment for shop users of different sizes and is a safety hazard. This report further defines this problem and proposes an iterative design process to meet the needs and wants of the customer. The adjustable-height pedestal grinder stand Senior Project team used this problem and design process to successfully complete the project within the allotted time. The first major deliverable and milestone …