MAE

Background 

When a fracture in a bone occurs, bone plates are used to facilitate the healing of the bone. Orthopedic surgeons attach these plates directly onto the bones of the patients. However, there have been a number of documented cases where the bone plate ends up failing, causing damage and requiring additional surgeries for the patient. When bone plates shift, there is micromotion and shearing between the bone and the metal plate, which compromises the stability of the plate. With the assistance of Professor McCarthy and Hoag Orthopedics, testing of the new re-designed textured metal plates will be conducted to analyze the improvement in the interface between the bone and the plate.

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Goal and Objectives

The ultimate goal of our project is to physically prove that a textured bone plate has a significantly greater coefficient of friction with the surface of a bone than a smooth bone plate. We aim to achieve this goal...

Background

CartDynamic is creating an easier and more efficient way to shop by modifying shopping carts to act autonomously. Firstly, an installed tablet will allow customers to enter their grocery list. After the tablet reads the list, a robotic map will be used to locate the items and plan an efficient route. Depending on the items, the route will prioritize different pathways. With the usage of a GPS and motors, the cart will be able to maneuver around the store with ease. The cart will also be incorporated with sensors and cameras that will allow the cart to stop for other carts and people. Once the cart reaches a designated location, the cart will stop and wait for the customer to scan and place the object into the cart. Once the customer finishes their grocery list, the cart will begin going towards the entrance. With the built-in tablet, the customer will...

The Pressurized Rocket Ejection Testing (PRET) team is designing the testing device that will be able to complete the objectives described. The design will be able to hold prototype nose cones, test different moutning methods, test different ejection system configurations, and measure velocity of deployment, pressure inside the nose cone, and shock force due a mass ejection.

Background

The current model of the shopping cart does not offer any advantages to the customers in their experience shopping in market places in terms of speed of processing payment. Some customers may have difficulties finding the items around the marketplace and need a way to find their specified goods in an efficient manner. A shopping cart that serves as a personal assistant for customers and checkout point can dramatically improve customer experience, reduce labor costs, and improve shopping and checkout times allowing for a higher turnover rater of customers, which in turn leads to higher revenues for store owners.

Goal

Our goal for this project is to design an autonomous cart robot capable of automating a part of the shopping experience in order to optimize shopping time for customers and eliminate the need for long queues on registers.

Future Plans and Improvements

• Possbile brake system to allow for more stability
...

Background 

Fixed Wing Test Bed (FWTB) is a project team contracted by UCI’s UAV Forge to assist in designing a new UAV model separate from the current UAV Forge’s hexacopter. UAV Forge participates in a yearly competition called AUVSI SUAS and is required to fly a UAV that can complete an airdrop task or an object detection and mapping task. The airdrop task requires the UAV to drop a 4 lb UGV from a height of at least 100 ft. The object detection and mapping task requires the UAV to take pictures of the area, detect objects and classify them, and use the pictures taken to create a map of the area. FWTB was tasked with the objective to design and test a fixed-wing testbed that can implement and complete both sets of tasks so that it can be used in future AUVSI SUAS competitions by UAV Forge.

Goal and...

Ford Automotive Company partnered up with UCI students to redesign the current HVAC duct in a Lincoln Navigator. As of today, the manufacturing process of the duct utilizes injection molding where a large initial investment is needed. To make up for the high initial cost, large volume production is required in order to lower the unit cost. However, to lower costs for low volume production (<20,000 units), UCI students will redesign the duct for Additive Manufacturing. The engineering design process will be implemented to create at least 3 designs that maximize nesting efficiency of a Multi-Jet Fusion 3D printer, with the overall goal of lowering the unit cost and minimizing performance loss compared to the current injection molded design. Students will present these proposed designs with an associated business case benchmarking against conventional manufacturing and identifying production volume opportunities.

Whoopy Wipes is a sanitization device capable of dispensing warm, moist towelettes at the touch of a button.

Background:

Due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, a higher standard of sanitation is required to safely navigate the world. This problem is particularly concerning because it affects almost every aspect of our lives. As indicated by the CDC, COVID can last on surfaces from hours to days. In order to satisfy the increased demand for a sanitary environment, we aim to design an autonomous sanitation device capable of sanitizing an entire surface to limit the risk of transmission.

Goal:

Create a fully autonomous robot that sanitizes a table surface.

Company Sponsor & Liaisons:

Sharper Image®

Pip Tompkin, Adam Gromfin, Adam Sbeglia, and Keith Covey

Faculty Advisors:

Farzad Ahmadkhanlou (farzad.a@uci.edu)

Vince McDonell (mcdonell@apep.uci.edu)

Thermal management systems, involving the use of technology to control and maintain temperature within a certain range, have applications across many industries. With the continuing advancements in electronics and other high power density producing systems such as spacecraft, the power they generate is expected to increase. These systems are projected to exceed a power generation of 1400 W/cm2. The absence of efficient cooling systems and power dissipation, however, will lead to the degradation of the system and short term use of components. The Air Force Research Laboratory is actively researching thermal management solutions and have partnered with universities for research and development. The High Heat Flux Project hopes to collaborate with AFRL in the future by relaying data.

The overall goal of the project is to design and manufacture a test bed that will demonstrate a controlled production and dissipation of heat flux. This is achieved by utilizing a heat cartridge...

Design Build Fly is an annual international competition hosted by AIAA and Cessna/Raytheon. The goal is to design and build a plane that abides by the year's rules while also performing the best at the competition. The competition will take place in Tucson, Arizona in mid-April. This year the theme of the competition is to build a carrier based aircraft. Some specific requirements are that the wing of the aircraft must be able to fold and unfold remotely, carry a radome, and carry a minimum of 4 stores and be able to drop them remotely. 

Siemens has partnered with UCI to teach senior-level MAE students how to use their NX suite software with an emphasis on additive manufacturing over the next two quarters: winter and spring 2021. The current team will attend workshops hosted by Siemens engineers to get familiarized with the NX suite and the concept of Digital Twins, which will serve as a guiding tool to learn how additive manufacturing is evolving in industry due to the digitalization of engineering design projects in different sectors. During this time, the team will also design an additively manufactured component to control the elevator of a plane. 

The UCI Rocket Project - Main Valve Actuation System (MVAS) is a team sponsored by the UCI Rocket Project that is dedicated to designing and developing a valve actuation system for the main fuel and oxidizer lines for the static test fire scheduled for Spring 2021. The system will consist of two mechanically linked valves that should actuate together in the same motion. It should also be able to withstand the high pressures needed to provide the necessary thrust for the rocket and withstand the cryogenic temperatures of the propellants that may reach as low as -300 degrees Fahrenheit. It will need to be designed compactly and safely to ensure that it can fit snugly within the rocket.

The Hoag Bone Plate Fixation Project is a design project sponsored by Hoag Orthopedics consisting of MAE/BME/MSE students. The purpose of the project is to improve the overall design of the current bone plate which is an smooth metal plate implant held together by surgical screws used to immobilize fractured bone segments. A textured bone plate should provide more friction between the bone and the plate. The screws in both the smooth bone plate and the textured bone plate are compared which will be used to determine if increased friction between the plate and the bone reduces failure of the screws. The re-designed plates hope to reduce failure in the screws which will decrease the number of failed fixations in patients. 

Summary:

The winter 2021 steerable mechanical walker is a project with the goal of designing and building a 2-legged walker that utilizes a Jansen-style leg mechanism and steering system.  The walker's purpose is to operate through radio control and be able to navigate over uneven terrain that traditional wheeled vehicles would not be able to.  

Background:

Human interaction within the movie theater must be significantly reduced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. A solution is needed to eliminate the portion of the movie theater experience in which customers are lined up to interact with the theater staff to order snacks and drinks at the concession stand.

Goals and Objectives: 

As part of the UCI Engineering Conference 2021, our goal is to create a robot that will be able to transport a certain amount of snacks and drinks to customers currently sitting inside the theaters. It will also contain additions such as hand sanitizer dispensers to have guests sanitize their hands before they grab their orders for increased sanitization. Customers will be able to order their snacks and drinks from a device at any point during the movie, and multiple robots will be moving back and forth constantly to quickly and efficiently deliver goods.  We want to...

Airdrop Solutions is a project team contract by UCI’s UAV Forge to assist in designing and refining UAV Forge’s current design of components. UAV Forge participates in a yearly competition called AUVSI SUAS and is required to deploy a UGV and land on a 12.192 m (40 ft) circular target as one of its tasks (i.e. the Airdrop task). A UAV would fly on the course, passing through waypoints, and then complete the Airdrop task inside the designated boundaries to do the Airdrop task. Airdrop Solutions was tasked with the objective to improve the current design of the UGV and deployment system to help aim the UGV more accurately and safely towards the center of the target.

Overview: The AUVSI SUAS competition involves developing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and a ground vehicle (UGV) capable of delivering a payload to certain locations and navigate around imaginary obstacles autonomously. 

Introduction: Airdrop Solutions’...

Diversifying technology is an imperative mission that requires careful consideration of all consumers involved, no matter how small the demographic, as to ensure equity, inclusion, and representation for marginalized groups. DiversiTeam’s goal is to provide an equitable design solution to a product that failed to consider diversity in its initial implementation. In our redesign, we aim to account for accessibility issues and/or other needs that underrepresented groups may have for consideration within our future product. For Winter 2021, our team has decided to redesign contemporary safety glasses. Conventional safety glasses are uncomfortable, ill-fitting (i.e.,one-size fits all approach), and provide poor clarity for users (e.g.,fog up), which causes many practical issues for users; especially those who suffer from anotia/microtia, eyeglass wearers, or those who generally have difficulties wearing standard glasses’ temples without discomfort. DiversiTeam's design will provide versatility to a product that will not only widen accessibility for users, but enhance convenience for all safety glass wearers. To remedy these concerns, DiversiTeam is designing innovative modular safety glasses with the following features: modular lens attachment capabilities that can accommodate the user’s size/fit preference, antifog coating to avoid poor clarity, and various adjustable strap/arm wearing styles to best suit the user’s comfort level, and the ability to integrate stackable modifications (e.g., face shield, top strap, light bar, etc.) to the frames through attachable/clip on methods will be implemented as a unique feature of this product. DiversiTeam's design will provide versatility to a product that will not only widen accessibility for users, but enhance convenience for all safety glass wearers.

Most of the energy leaves our bodies in the form of heat simply due to existing temperature gradients in the environment. An average human body at rest emits about 350,000 J of energy per hour, which is roughly equivalent to the energy given off by a 100-Watts incandescent light bulb. As a matter of fact, the conversion of human-body-heat into electrical energy using a solid-state thermoelectric generator (TEG) sparks interest in creating wearable self-powered mobile electronics and sensors. We, the UCI W.A.T.C.H team, which stands for "Wear A Thermoelectric Calorie Harvester," are dedicated to designing wearable thermoelectric devices powered by human body heat!

Background:

Hydrogen fuel cells are a form of renewable energy that is easily accessible since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and do not cause pollution or danger to our environment as they do not release greenhouse gases as opposed to burning fossil fuels.The long range drone project uses a fuel cell battery as a source of power for a flying robot that can be remotely controlled or fly autonomously through software-controlled flight. For this particular project, we will be researching the fuel cell efficiency in a drone that we will design and build ourselves. Groups will be building a structure for the drone and assembling electronic parts for use throughout the experiment, while keeping the fuel cell as the focal point of this project. 

Goals and Objectives:

This year (2020-2021), the team will design and crate a fuel cell battery powered drone that flies and add the application of carrying...

Our goal is to design a cost-effective robotics kit that provides various design options for historically, underrepresented students in STEM.
We will provide tutorials, a syllabus, and customizations of the kit based on the resources available to students.We aim for outreach programs to implement our kit with ease and shine a light to the many applications of robotics in STEM to the next generation.

Summary: Design a cost-effective, robotics instruction kit for middle school students. 

Spring 2021 Deliverables:

• ​Claw assembled/calibrated

• Global code w/ interface

• Cost reductions via bulk purchasing

Whoopy Wipes is a project aimed to create a device that delivers warm and santized towelettes to the user. This devices utilizes a tray to dispense wipes, and an internal heating and pumping system to heat a cleaning solution of your choice to 165 degrees Farenheit. The solution is then sent to an ejection try to wet the wipes for the user.

Goal and Objectives:

This is fifth phase for this project. Over all the phases the design, functionality and all components have gone through multiple iterations and finally his quarter we were able to create a prilimainary working prototype. The next step will be to create the final version. 

Team Contact

Team Lead: Katlyn Chiu (Katlync1@uci.edu)

Company Sponsors

Company Name: High Tower

Company Contacts: Jon Stevenson, Steve Wiled and Melanie McCarthy

Faculty Advisors

Farzad Ahmadkhanlou (farzad.a@uci.edu)

Vince McDonell (mcdonell@apep.uci.edu)

Background/Summary:

UAV Forge is a multidisciplinary engineering design project with a focus on designing, building, and programming unmanned aerial vehicles in order to complete the flight missions specified by the AUVSI SUAS 2021 Competition. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, AUVSI canceled the 2020-2021 UAV competition; however, UAV Forge decided to continue development using the same time constraints and mission needs. Since the construction of our UAV was already underway, we continued building and improving our design to produce a drone that meets competition requirements. Although we will not see it compete this year, we will have learned important lessons for the future and solved the intricate technical challenge. 

The project had historically been a research project at UCI and has grown more popular over the years. Only recently has the project grown to encompass the competition aspect and grown our team to 60 members. With such growth came a remodel...

Background:
We quickly adapted our habits when the COVID-19 pandemic started, such as working from home, attending virtual classes, and especially changing sanitation practices. Over the course of the pandemic, we have become more aware of how much bacteria and germs reside in our phones, keys, wallets, and other items. Post COVID-19, people will look for ways to sanitize their items to improve their health. Our team wanted to create a portable solution to reduce cross-contamination in people's daily lives as they study, work, and travel post-pandemic.

Goals: 

• Create a sanitization system for bags
• Use UV-C light to eliminate 99.99% of germs, bacterias, and other viruses.
• Prevent UV-C light from harming the user
• Implement smart features
• Allow users to interact with features using their phone
• Target the uses of young professionals (25 to 35 years old)

Team Contact:
Team Lead: Wei-En Chen (weienc1@uci.edu)

Company Sponsors:

Sharper Image ®

Adam Gromfin &...

CanSat is an annual, international design-build-fly competition where student teams of maximum 10 students build a probe (the CanSat) to complete a specified mission.

The overall purpose of this project is to create the correct conditions in which helium will be in a solid state. This will be done by pressurizing an already existing pressure vessel with a view port, to 30 atm and then cooling said pressure vessel to 1 kelvin using a cryostat. However because the cell has never been used in these conditions it is necessary to calculate; the stress on the view port;  stress on a pressure cell body; and the elongation of the bolts holding the view port closed. If the cell can withstand the pressure and temperature, then it will be used to create solid helium. The other purpose of this project is to design from the ground up, a new pressure vessel capable of withstanding being pressurized to 50 atm, that will be used in further experimentation in the creation of solid helium.

This design project aims to explore the different methods currently available for harnessing the energy beneath our feet, to compare and contrast these methods, and to modify, improve and/or design a new method to effectively harness geothermal energy. Current Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) are capable of operating at temperatures as low as 100℃ which brings almost all of the U.S. landmass into the realm of energy extraction.

The Hot Air Balloon project is a part of the Advanced Combustion group that consists of MAE students designing a method to test the emissions and efficiency of a hot air balloon burner. We are focusing on obtaining data from hot air balloon burners both out on the field as well as at the UCI campus test facility. The current team will be continuing the work that students from previous years have started to complete the project goals. Currently, the team of 2020-2021 is devising a way to mount the probe to take readings from the burner as well as designing the ducting for the testing rig.

Background

Cargo Plane is a senior design project competing in the International SAE Aero Design competition. Per parameters provided by SAE, we will be designing and building an electric RC cargo airplane that will be carrying a payload of soccer balls and metal plates. Our focus is to generate high lift at low velocities and create a high payload to plane structure ratio optimizing for a greater flight score in competition. 

The plane contains a single propeller propulsion system and is mainly composed of a variety of woods and metals. Our team works together in three structural subsystems of Wings, Fuselage, and Tails while few members branch off into specialties of Aerodynamics, Propulsion, Avionics, and CAD. This project provides students with the opportunity to experience the engineering process in practice.

HyperXite’s goal is to research, design, build and validate a scalable self-propelled pod to demonstrate the feasibility of Hyperloop design concepts at a high pace of innovation. This year, HyperXite will be attending the European Hypeloop Week and will build a small-scale pod to be tested on the team's own test track. 

UCI Modular and Mobile Rocket Rack is dedicated to designing and manufacturing an optimal rocket rack that will allow the UCI Rocket Team to transport their 25 ft by 12.83 inch diameter rocket from UCI to the desert for live testing. Our objective is building a reliable, modular, affordable, rocket rack for the UCI Rocket Project. Keeping cost at a minimum while providing a high strength rocket rack will be one of our hardships. Solidworks will be used to make a 3D model of the rocket rack that will later be analyzed using Ansys for component failure.