MIE’s Fall Semester Senior Design Showcase Highlights Novel and Creative Projects
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When the Fall Senior Design Showcase 2023 was held this December 5th by the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) Department, six talented teams of MIE students took home awards, as evaluated by a panel of six expert judges from within the MIE department, additional UMass faculty, and local business leaders and entrepreneurs. The innovative products that won prizes ranged from a manufacturing device to produce so-called “Blendy Straws,” which allow customers to drink and stir their beverages simultaneously, to a “Modular Fuselage for Fixed Wing UAV,” which provides a reusable fuselage design for the UMass Aeronautics Team.
The Senior Design Showcase is the touchstone of MIE’s capstone design course, in which students apply their full engineering education to solve new and important problems and present their results. 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 or models, realize them, and evaluate how well those designs or models meet the original customer needs.
The competition was divided into two groups of students – the semester-long teams and the year-long teams – with three prizes given to each group.
First place in the semester-long group went to the “Blendy Straw Slitting Machine” team of Molly Fabrizio, Ian Roche, Gordon Hatcher, Patrick Conroy, and Tara Gallagher. The goal of this project was to develop a proof of concept for a manufacturing device for producing the Blendy Straw, a combination sipping and stirring gadget. This team was tasked with designing a proof of concept for a machine that consistently creates four equidistant slits of equal length in a two-piece annular straw. The team was challenged to create consistent results despite varying straw diameters. In addition to the mechanical design, the team also designed a control system to automate the process.
The judges awarded the second-place prize among semester-long projects to the “Chest Tube Caddy” team for addressing a critical issue faced at Bay State Hospital regarding patient mobility. The team enabled patients fitted with chest tubes to move about more easily by creating a holding mechanism for attaching any chest tube to an IV (intravenous fluids) pole for ease of patient transport and to improve patient care.
Third place in that group went to the team that created “Neely Drum Machine Shoes.” Inspired by the concept of Margo Neely's “Neely Air TR-808 Shoe,” the team answered the challenge of redefining music creation through an innovative new form of footwear, which allows users to compose music digitally through foot movements.
The judges awarded top honors among the year-long, sponsored, mechanical-engineering projects to the “Modular Fuselage for Fixed Wing UAV” team of Brandon Lutz, Caitlyn Cleary, Ian McMenamin, Pradhyum Vikram, and Robert Hough. The objective of this student-concept project was to deliver parametric, 3D-print-ready files for a nose, midsection, and rear-module fuselage that is compatible across competition years for repeated usage by the UMass Aeronautics Team. The goal of this approach was to enable the competition team to operate faster and with more accuracy, providing a more comprehensive final design.
Second place in that group went to “Rocket Booster,” a team that developed a 3D-printed booster section for the UMass Rocket Team’s NASA USLI competition. The section includes the fins, motor retention, and airframe and ensures its ability to withstand all forces encountered during launch and landing. The team’s design also addresses the problem of accurate fin alignment to enable a stable, predictable flight of the rocket.
The judges gave the third-place prize in the year-long group to the team working on the “Offshore Floating Wind Challenge.” This team’s mission was to design and fabricate a moored floating structure capable of supporting and stabilizing a Vevor 400W turbine while withstanding powerful winds, waves, currents, and wear caused by the ocean environment.
A culmination of the four-year B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering, the MIE’s capstone design course develops and refines students’ abilities to plan, organize, and execute an engineering design project, evaluate design alternatives with supporting engineering analysis, apply appropriate engineering standards, assess and optimize designs from the customer perspective, and present final designs. The course climaxes in the Senior Design Showcase. (January 2024)