Manufacturing Commons^™

In-Situ Mechanical Tester, Andrrew Murach, Gustavo Marquez, Kosimo Tonn, Jake Vormbaum

Mechanical Engineering

Over the course of the 2022-23 Cal Poly SLO school year, a small tensile tester device was developed specifically for Dr. Long Wang to test thin film materials under a microscope and generate accurate force versus displacement graphs. A tensile tester was manufactured using purchased and machined components, electronics were consolidated in a separate box and connected, and a program and user interface were written to control the motion, provide custom inputs, and organize useful data for the researcher. Tests were conducted to compare the performance of the device to universal tensile testers available in the Composites lab. The device …

Disc Golf Throwing Robot, Nevada S. Schultz, Sydney M. Lewis, Erick Edmundo Daza, Rachel Alysse Greenberg, Peter M. Kean

Mechanical Engineering

Disc golf companies need better methods to test disc flight. The scope of this project is to create a disc throwing robot that can throw a disc golf driver 450-500 feet, with control over the speed, spin, and release angle. Research shows that multiple disc-throwing products exist; however, none meet the full requirements of this project. The Cal Poly senior project design team created a proof-of-concept machine. This prototype started as a two-wheel mechanism. Eventually, a third wheel was added, allowing for complete control over disc spin. The three-wheel prototype reached 62 mph when perfectly calibrated. The prototype is accurate, …

The Center For Centering Dome, Olek Piechaczek, Ryan M. Scharf

Architectural Engineering

The Center for Centering seeks to create a large-scale healing center, conducive to individual centering of the mind and body. This mobile installation provides a relaxing, enclosed space while still maintaining a connection to the outdoors. The clients liked the idea of having a pop-up installation that could be easily set up as a touring display. With a deadline for installation looming in June 2022, a team of students had five months to design and manufacture the structure.

In winter 2022, the students developed custom geometry to minimize the number of individual parts and built a ¼ scale model of …

Programmable Vibration Table Retrofit With Eagle Medical, Jonathan Ilagan, Madhav Asok, Max Lewter

Biomedical Engineering

This project aimed to repair and upgrade a vibration table used for package testing for the sponsor, Eagle Medical - a medical packaging and sterilization company based in Paso Robles, California. The current vibration table is not programmable and lacks circuit diagrams, making it difficult to repair. In addition, it is not functional due to internal circuitry issues and power requirements. To address these issues, the team will implement several upgrades to improve the product and allow for better random cyclic vibration testing. A full assessment of the existing vibration table will be conducted to ensure the viability of these …

Portable Drinking Water Cooler And Dispenser, Gustavo Hernandez-Lerena, Erik Torres, Caleb Francis Parham, Terry Leung

Mechanical Engineering

This document serves as the comprehensive report for the testing and building for the Portable Water-Cooling System by team AquaCool. Team AquaCool is comprised of four mechanical engineers with a passion to help the agricultural industry in their efforts to keep the health of the workers at their peak. The four engineers who partook in helping the farm workers are as follows: Caleb F. Parham, Erik Torres, Gustavo Hernandez-Lerena, and Terry Leung. To reduce the risk of heatstroke and other unwanted effects from the harsh working conditions during summer, a small and portable system was built to help in the …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Hypoxic Incubation Chamber, Simone Lisette Helfrich, Makenzie Nicole Jones

Biomedical Engineering: Graduate Reports and Projects

This paper describes the design, manufacturing, and testing of a novel controllable hypoxic incubator with fully functional oxygen gas control and temperature control in a humid environment. On the current market, a majority of the few hypoxic incubators use pre-mixed gas that does not offer precise control over gas concentration. The objective for this project was to create a chamber that allows the user to set the O2 concentration to varying set points of % O2 while maintaining the chamber at a constant body temperature, CO2 level, humidity, and sterility. To start the project, multiple concepts were developed for the …

Hypoxic Incubation Chamber, Simone Lisette Helfrich, Makenzie Nicole Jones

Master's Theses

This paper describes the design, manufacturing, and testing of a novel controllable hypoxic incubator with fully functional oxygen gas control and temperature control in a humid environment. On the current market, a majority of the few hypoxic incubators use pre-mixed gas that does not offer precise control over gas concentration. The objective for this project was to create a chamber that allows the user to set the O2 concentration to varying set points of % O2 while maintaining the chamber at a constant body temperature, CO2 level, humidity, and sterility. To start the project, multiple concepts were developed for the …

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 …

Design Of A Proprioceptive Actuator Utilizing A Cycloidal Gearbox, Craig John Kimball

Master's Theses

Legged robotics creates the demand for high torque compact actuators able to develop high instantaneous torque. Proprioceptive actuator design theory is a design theory that removes the need for a torque feedback device and relies on the stiffness in the leg for absorbing the high Ground Impact Forces created by walking locomotion. It utilizes a high torque density motor paired with a gearbox with a high gear ratio for torque multiplication. Previously work has been done to design a proprioceptive actuator design that utilizes a planetary gearbox to create a modular low-cost actuator for legged robotics. The purpose of this …

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 …

Baja Bug Suspension, James Ankers, Rebecca Hansen, Dakota Robert Hollingsworth, Thomas Alfred Spycher

Mechanical Engineering

The goal of this senior project was to design and build a long travel front suspension system for a VW Bug. This started by defining the scope of the project and performing preliminary research. In this step, similar products were investigated, and research was done on stakeholders and customers. Next, concept development, design, and evaluation were performed. With this, the first iteration of our CAD model was designed, and physical prototypes were made. Using all this information, and feedback from advisors and sponsors, multiple iterations of our CAD were performed until the design was ready to manufacture. Drawings were taken …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Automated Mini-Tubular Ceramic Production, Hunter Brooks, Daniel Freeman, Leo Taranta-Slack

Mechanical Engineering

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory need a way to increase the rate of manufacturing of mini-tubular ceramics to be used in testing particulate air filters. This document outlines our process from researching and writing an initial scope of work all the way to fabricating and testing a final prototype. This journey takes us through the background research, ideation process and selection of a final design. We also detail the desired engineering specifications and our concept selection process. We dedicate a significant portion of this report to discussion of our final design. We delve into how it was manufactured as …

Gaf Fiberglass Mat Slitter Blade Sharpener, Mark D. Breaux, Bradley M. Smith, Esteban Carrillo, Carlos Espinoza

Mechanical Engineering

This document contains an overview for the offline slitter blade sharpening system created for GAF to sharpen their current cutting tools in a timely and safe manner without hindering the timeline and production of their assembly line. This design was developed by four undergraduate students at from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. This document first investigates background information of any patents, current sharpening device, sharpening safety standards, or literature review that may be useful in a sharpening mechanism device. This document also contains our design concept prototype, which consists of three main features, the use of a top guard for …

Benchmark Testing Of Gold Ribbon Bonds On Thin-Film Microchips With New Gold Ribbon Auto-Bonder, Austin Conrad

Master's Theses

The focus of this document is on the gold ribbon bond testing and creation of a bonding map for the new gold ribbon Auto-Bonder at Keysight Technologies in Santa Rosa, California. The new Auto-Bonder replaces a nearly 50-year-old machine that no longer had any documentation for the original process of thin-film microchip ribbon bonding. The original process was developed in the early 1970s to provide an electrical connection from the top to the bottom of the microchip. The electrical connection takes the place of what would be a via in a modern silicon microchip. Gold wire bonding is a common …

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 …

Bull Outdoor Products - Electric Grill, Sofie M. Groberman, Makai J. Baker, James T. Andrews

Mechanical Engineering

Our senior design project team designed, assembled, and tested an outdoor electric grill. The sponsor for our project is Bull Outdoor Products, a high-end outdoor kitchen set, pizza oven, and grill company. We met with our sponsor to discuss project expectations and important product characteristics. We also researched the barbecue market and its customers to determine what grill characteristics are the most important. We learned which engineering specifications needed to be tested and outlined what our goals and overall objectives for this project are. With our background research and overall objectives in mind, we came up with different solutions through …

F34 Beekeeper Assist, Kyle Ladtkow, Javier Guerra, Jose Velazquez, Ryan Heryford

Mechanical Engineering

Alejandro Jauregui is a veteran who now works as a commercial beekeeper. He lost both of his legs during his service. While his current prostheses allow him to fully complete his work, he has found that inspection of the bee boxes causes him severe hip and back pain. Bee box inspection is a critical task for beekeeping, especially since he maintains about 200 hives every day. Our senior project team was tasked with designing and building a device that would help him move the top bee box out of the way to allow for inspection. We performed preliminary research into …

Med-Drop Pill Dispenser, Cole Pike, Taylor Morris, Christopher Bruni, Jose Gomez

Mechanical Engineering

Veterans’ Affairs home care nurses currently spend anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours filling out monthly prescriptions one pill at a time to veterans who are unable to leave their homes. The goal of this project was to create an easy-to-use device that could be left at a patient’s home that nurses could use to quickly and accurately dispense medication into the patient’s monthly pill box.

Configurable Seat Track Latching Mechanism, Emily Sun, Kai Quizon, Rick Hall, Daniel Turn, Nicholas Holman, Alexander Kuznik, Jacob Winkler, Audrey Trejo, Phoebe Zeiss, Steven Kam

Mechanical Engineering

The reconfigurable seating system is a flexible seating solution for transit vehicles that allows operators to change the configuration of the floor plan in a timely manner in order to accommodate change in needs. This project consists of three senior project teams each working on a component of the design: system, track & latch, and articulation. Descriptions of the responsibilities of each team will be discussed below.