MAE

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: 

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.

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:

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:

Background/Summary:

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.

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.

Student engineers working on this project are tasked with producing a preliminary design of the next generation liquid-fueled rocket engine for the UCI Rocket Project. The injector, combustion chamber, and nozzle are designed to achieve a given thrust and specific impulse while also being relatively simple to manufacture. Since these components are experiencing exceedingly high temperatures and heat fluxes, a suitable cooling system must be designed to maintain safe operating temperatures of the combustion chamber walls and nozzle. 

In this project, we are utilizing a reciprocating compact microfluidics disk to separate plasma from whole blood. Doing so will allow for the plasma to then be tested for antibodies using an adaption of immunoassay technology. An important application of this technology is that it is able to help test blood samples for COVID-19 samples quickly and accurately.

Design Build Fly is an annual competition hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Each year, AIAA publishes a new set of rules for the DBF competition. For the upcoming 2021 DBF competition, candidates will be required to design, build, and test an aircraft with a towed sensor.

Background

Background 

UAV Forge will be competing in the AUVSI-SUAS 2021 competition. This competition is to simulate how package delivery services are looking to deliver packages without the use of operators. The Unmanned Aerial System (UAS )must be able to avoid other UAS’ in flight, map the operating area to identify any hazards, avoid static objects, identify drop locations, drop off the package in a safe location, and move the package to the customer through the use of an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV).

Goal and Objectives

UAV Forge is a multidisciplinary senior design project that focuses on using engineering fundamentals to design, build and program an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to complete aviation missions outlined by the AUVSI SUAS 2021. This year the team is focusing on making a hexacopter for the competition. Our main focus for the hexacopter is the landing system. Currently, we have a static landing system that consists of tubing. However, the static landing system affects the UAV’s landing and imaging capabilities. The current static landing system obstructs the vision of our LiDAR and imaging systems, reducing our performance in the ODCL, Mapping, and Moving Obstacle Avoidance tasks. Therefore, our team is focused on designing an adaptive landing gear to improve upon last year’s design. An adaptive landing gear will allow the UAV to adapt to any type of terrain and provide a sufficient amount of tilt resistance. 

Background:

CPUs and TPUs generate a lot of heat 

Traditional temperature sensors can not easily acquire temperature data at any given point of the cooling system. They can either:

•  measure temperature at a single point or
•  for the overall system 

Goals and Objectives:

The UCI RP Fins Design and Integration works to design and create a plan of manufacturing of fins for the UCI Rocket Project’s Preliminary Test Rocket. For the past several years, the team has had a multitude of successful launches, all with the incorporation of a fin design.  The Fins teams will be continuing the tradition of launching a rocket with fins by designing the fins geometry, selecting the material and components to manufacture, and developing a mounting method to attach the fins onto the fuselage of the rocket. 

Spacecraft Thermal Management Systems (STMS) is an undergraduate, interdisciplinary research/design project that works to develop an electrochromic cell for space applications for Cube and Nano Satellites. This device will act as a method of controlling heat from going into and out of the satellite through a color change, which affects how much heat is being allowed into the system. Such spacecraft are not exposed to a constant heat flux from the sun as a result of low Earth orbit. This device is special since the amount of color change can be modified to let in the proper amount of heat necessary for the spacecraft to operate.

The device works through a redox reaction pairing of nickel oxide and tungsten trioxide based films. When electrons are removed from each film, the nickel oxide will color to a dark brown and the tungsten trioxide will bleach to a clear coloration. Similarly, when electrons are added to each film, the nickel oxide will bleach to a clear coloration and the tungsten trioxide will darken to a blue coloration. When these thin films are combined, both pairs will either darken or bleach at the same time, forming the device.

Integrating the words tension and integrity, tensegrity utilizes adjustable tension among one-dimensional interacting members in order to create different three dimensional structures. This project aims to create the first morphing wing at UCI using a tensegrity mechanism. The wing will be able to change airfoil shape on demand, in order to produce more efficient aerodynamic properties based on flight sections (takeoff, cruise, and landing). Split into two sub-teams, simulations and structural, the team will work toward creating and building a functional prototype of the tensegrity wing, and test the prototype in UCI's wind tunnels to verify results of more efficient lift, drag, and pressure distributions than conventional wings.