The MIE Senior Design Showcase and Competition
Content
The MIE Senior Design Showcase and Competition was held at UMass Amherst on Thursday, December 8th. Each student team’s work was evaluated by eight judges from within the MIE department, additional UMass faculty, and by local business leaders and entrepreneurs.
The judges scored the teams on their ability to capture the needs of their customers, convert those needs into engineering specifications, apply engineering analysis to generate multiple designs, and choose an optimal design. Semester long projects also had to fabricate their design and evaluate how well the prototype met the original customer needs.
Scoring first place for the semester long projects was Team 1508, Small Scale Wind Turbine Remote Monitoring (Bennett Macgregor, Jack Drummond, Jay Sant, Ryan Sullivan, Thomas Haley). Part of the National Small Wind Turbine Research Project, this team determined the parameters that should be monitored on a wind turbine to evaluate its performance. They also demonstrated the feasibility of using industrial automation components for wind turbine testing, evaluation, validation, data storage, and remote accessibility. Their visualization neatly shows the data can be seen in real time anywhere with cellular data service. Second and third runners up were Team 1503, Variable Stiffness Roboshoes and Team 1506, MIE Fluid Transport Teaching System.
Team 9708, Mikel Redundant Release Mechanism (Stephen Baiardi, Rebecca Bartlett, Hari Krishnan, Daniel Nelson) took top honors for the yearlong industry sponsored projects. This team has created a new design for an underwater release system for MIKEL which will successfully detach a buoy anchored to the sea floor allowing for a safe retrieval. The team’s solution is straightforward and comprised mainly of off the shelf products allowing for easy manufacturing and reduced costs. In the spring semester, the group will fabricate, evaluate, and iterate their design. Second and third runners up for the yearlong projects were Team 9702, Callaway Preform Loading, and Team 9704, Collins Aerospace SLM Damping.
Learn more about MIE senior capstone design projects here.
If you have an idea for a semester long project, or would be interested in becoming an industry sponsor for next academic year’s projects please contact Jim Lagrant at jlagrant [at] umass [dot] edu (jlagrant[at]umass[dot]edu)
Featuring
Jim Lagrant
Professor of Practice in Manufacturing, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Director, MS Manufacturing Program
Department Industrial Liaison, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Teaching fundamental and advanced manufacturing related courses with a focus on automation technology, industry 4.0, and experiential engineering education.
