MAE Projects

Autonomous Interface Engineering

MAE

Background 

"Robot for Executing Physics-Inspired Path Planner" is a capstone design project. The project team will design and build a self-contained and self-sufficient robot capable of tracking a preplanned collision-free path in a 2D environment containing circular obstacles with a maximum error of 10% at any point.

Unique Background of Project Team Members

Beach Cleaning Robot

MAE

 

Background: 

The Beach Cleaning Robot Project is an undergraduate student lead project that aims to design and manufacture a trash-collecting robot to support coastal cleanup efforts. The goal for this team is to produce a remote-controlled, scalable prototype that can collect trash the size of plastic water bottles and snack bags/containers. 

 

Goal and Objectives:

• Finalize a list of requirements and constraints for our design 

• Create a concept that meets all requirements and attributes

CONCEPT VTOL

MAE

Background

Due to COVID-19, the medical industry has received an increase in demand for rapid covid tests, as well a need for contactless interactions between humans. The increase in traffic for hospital visits has strained the current logistics network and increased delivery times. CONCEPT VTOL plans to mitigate the risk for contamination and decrease delivery times by designing a novel VTOL drone that will deliver prescriptions and rapid covid tests from the UCI Student Health Center to UCI students within a 5-mile radius. 

FUSION Engineering Project: Autonomous Vacuum (Team Oompa Loompa Broombas)

BME
CEE
EECS
MAE

The objective of the FUSION Engineering Project is to design and create a functional autonomous vacuum cleaner. Each team must adhere to certain design specifications set by the Project Directors and will compete with each other at FUSIONCon in May 2023. Each team’s goal is to create a cost-effective robot while maintaining functionality.

FUSION Engineering Project: Autonomous Vacuum (Team swiffer diss track)

BME
EECS
MAE

Background:

The FUSION Autonomous Vaccum project aims to provide members with the opportunity to work with a diverse range of other engineering majors while aquiring hands-on experience with Arduinos and CAD modeling.Although we share the same objective as the other project teams within FUSION, we will differentiate ourselves with our unique design and approach to problem-solving in order to be a competitive oponent in the end-of-the-year competition. 

 

Goal and Objectives: 

FUSION Engineering Project: Autonomous Vacuum (Team Wall-Is)

MAE

FUSION's Engineering Project provide students with the opportunity to design and manufacture a robot from scratch and learn the basics of automated controls, motions/distance sensors, and programming. 

The goal is to design and manufacture an autonomous robot capable of picking up small amounts of dirt and debris from the ground simultaneously avoiding any obstacles in the way.

Competition: 

Each team will begin with their robot in a square 5 by 5 feet field with small pieces of dirt and obstacles randomly scattered around. The objective for the robot is to pick up the pieces of dirt while simultaneously avoiding the obstacles present in the way. Each team will be scored based on their performance during the 2 minute period. Each piece of ‘dirt’ picked up by the robot is +1 point and each time the robot hits an obstacle is -1 point. The final score in the end will represent the team’s score and will be used to determine the winner.

FUSION Engineering Project: Team Peter's Anteaters

EECS
MAE

In this project, we will be creating an autonomous cleaning robot that resembles the form of a Roomba. Upon completion, our cleaning robot will go through a challenging obstacle course where it will need to avoid obstacles while simultaneously vacuuming up dust and debris in the play field. Through this project, we are synthesisizing several disciplines of engineering including mechanical, robotics, electrical and computer engineering in order to accomplish our goal. 

Helping Hands

MAE

Background
     This student-led project is a partnership with the LN4 Hand Project. The LN4 is a non-profit organization that aims to provide free prosthetic hands to anyone in need- anywhere in the world. They have already delivered over 5000 of their prosthetic devices to below-the-elbow amputees, mainly in India and Cambodia. There remains an estimated 145,000 eligible patients globally, waiting to receive a helping hand.

High Pressure Quick Disconnect 189 Project

MAE

Pressure fed rocket engines make use of high pressure pressurant tanks that should be
topped off after pressing propellant tanks. One of the ways to accomplish this safely is to make
use of a remotely controlled high pressure quick disconnect (QD) system. The system would be
responsible for disconnecting the high pressure pressurant fill line after refilling the pressurant
tank to nominal pressures. By excluding the need to have a manual high pressure disconnect

Horizontal Stepping Robot

MAE

The Horizontal Stepping Robot is a rehabilitation tool that will allow researchers to study epidural electrical stimulation (EES), with the aim of allowing patients with spinal cord injury to regain the ability to walk. The robot will be rolled up to the patient's bed, allowing for training while the patient is still hospitalized, and support the weight of their legs to allow an “air stepping” motion. It will record the patient leg motion and allow for tracking of the patient's progress through rehabilitation. The current approach is to use pulleys, springs, and cables to design a passive system that hangs patients' legs and assists leg motion while using the microprocessor, Arduino, to collect data and attract the motion of patients' legs.

Human Powered Vehicle Competition at UCI

MAE

Our name comes from the e-Human Powered Vehicle Competition (HPVC), hosted by the national organization American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) which we are participating in. We want to establish this new UCI senior design project as a recurring project that anyone can join. In addition, we are partnered with ASME at UCI to help get lower-classmen involved in the process so they can gain some hands-on experience necessary for succeeding in their engineering careers.

ASME hosts an endurance race that runs for 2.5 hours with many obstacles such as tight turns, uneven terrain, and inclines. HPVC at UCI will design and manufacture a recumbent, tadpole bike with a sufficient rollover protection system to keep the driver safe in case of an accident during the endurance race. The bike consists of 5 major systems: braking system, drive system, steering system, rollover protection system, and electrical system. The team has been split into three subteams: statics which consists of the bike frame, rollover protection system and seat; dynamics which consists of steering, braking, and driving; electrical which consists of the battery, electrical box and electric motor. Overall, the team aims to produce a bike that is ergonomic, safe, and easy to handle.

LAVEP: Lightweight Advanced VTOL EDF Project

MAE

Background:

This team is tasked with improving upon the vertical takeoff and landing aircraft prototype Kestrel. Kestrel uses 3 electric ducted fans (EDFs) which are housed inside nacelles which can rotate about the pitch axis such that their thrust can be redirected from being expelled rearward to downward and are powered by lithium polymer batteries. The augmentation of these nacelles allows for standard forward flight, transitional flight, and vertical flight.

MAE 189 Novel Actuator for Drones using EPMs

MAE

Our project is centered around an electro-permanent magnet(EPM), that ultimately can be implemented into two main iterations. The function of an EPM is to have a switchable magnet, within a nonswitchable magnet, that can have the direction of its magnetic field be switched by the input of a set current. In a larger scale application, this EPM can be incorporated with a bellow and thus when the magnetic field is switched a resulting pull force or push force of a spring would insinuate. The goal is to have the on setting of the switchable magnet induce an outward push force from a spring, and thus create force/motion just by supplying current. With the bellow, this EPM could be incorporated with artificial movement. 

Nitriding Fixture for Splined and Quill Shafts

MAE

Description:

A fixture will be designed to withstand the ammonia atmosphere of a nitriding process in an oven of 1000℉ and must be able to support the weight of four shafts. The fixture must hold three splined shafts and one quill shaft in the oven such that minimal stress occurs in the shaft during the thermal cycle to 1000℉ that can result in permanent deflection. This will require modeling of stresses in the fixture at temperature with the strength reduction associated with >1000℉ appropriate margin.  

Technical Details:

Portable Shoulder Exercise Device

MAE

We are a team of undergraduate Engineering students that are working towards the common goal of improving people's quality of life. Our team's objective is to design and build a portable shoulder exercise device that is capable of rehabilitating the patient's shoulder muscle. Ultimately, we want the patients to be able to perform tasks that require overhead movement and extension of the elbow. Our device will be used by patients and physical therapists at the UCI Medical Center. We hope our device aids the needs of those with impaired shoulders and potentially improves the healing process and the long-term mobility of their arms.

Robot Arm

MAE

Our team will design, build, and test a robot arm.

A key function of our Robot Arm design is the implementation of a proxy arm to control and program the arms motion. The goal is to create an intuitive user interface that can quickly repurpose the arm for the task at hand.

Our inspiration for this proxy arm is from a youtube video demonstrating the control and programming of a robot arm. In this video a button is pressed to begin recording the proxy arms motion. It can be controlled in real time or the motion recorded for playback. Unfortunately the video has since been made private.

Robot Arm End Effector: Zot Effect

MAE

Background

Archytas Automation aims to create educational robot kits that could be utilized in a classroom setting for teaching as well as competition; additionally, Archytas is hoping to expand their robot arms into other commercial settings to ease the labor of various tasks. Their gripper end effector is tasked with the ability to grip and move a large range of objects with varying shapes, sizes, and payloads.  Current issues with the gripper include the housing of the motor and its wiring, its limiting functionality, and difficulty to assemble. 

Robot for Executing Physics Inspired Path Planned

Path Follower
MAE

  According to many route planning methods in the available literature, the Robot that we are going to create will follow the path precisely  while avoiding probable obstacles. We must discover strategies for finite-dimensional optimizations, in which the ideal path is formed by discrete optimal points. Using the calculus of variations, the Path Follower we will create directly builds the perfect path with the fewest steps. Additionally, it will be able to implement the essential control inputs that the pathfinder scheme specifies. As a proof of concept, an obstacle-oriented map of the environment is first constructed in this offline phase. Control inputs are then transmitted to the robot so that the Path Follower can carry out the command precisely.

Rocket Project Liquid CO2 Ejection System

MAE

The purpose of this project is to give the UCI Rocket Project Team a new consistent CO2 Ejection System for the recovery of the rocket that will be used for the Preliminary Test Rocket (PTR).  Students will be able to manufacture and develop the system “in-house” and can easily be manufactured to align with the project guidelines. From past designs of the recovery systems and the familiarity of the current rocket, students will be able to pursue more knowledge among higher altitudes with a CO2 Ejection Systems and implement more efficient and cleaner solutions to initiate the recovery process. With ongoing experimentations, students have the opportunity to integrate and improve their knowledge from the future systems of CO2 Ejection to reach higher altitudes in the near future.

Small Scale Wind Turbine

MAE

Our Small Scale Wind Turbine project aims to provide a sustainable and cost-effective solution for individuals, organizations, and communities looking to generate their own electricity. In this project, we focus on designing and building a compact, lightweight, and durable small-scale wind turbine that can generate a minimum of 10 watts of electricity in low wind speed conditions,  while being able to withstand wind speeds up to 18 m/s. The wind turbine must fit into a 50cm x 50cm x 50cm box without its mounting assembly and have a total cost of less than $300. The goal is to create a wind turbine that is both efficient and accessible, providing a reliable source of energy for those in need. Through careful design and rigorous testing, our Small Scale Wind Turbine program aims to create a high-quality and cost-effective solution for renewable energy  generation.

Small Scale Wind Turbine

MAE

Renewable energy remains to be a sustainable source, exhibiting benefits such as low environmental impact and ability to be naturally replenished. SCWT Design sets out to reintroduce the utilization of wind energy by creating a small-scale portable wind turbine that demonstrates practicality for camping applications. The focuses, placed on portability and functionality, draw to a design which demonstrate capabilities for providing electrity for ordinary charging portable appliances in a camping setting (2 cell phones, camera battery charger, flashlight, backup battery bank). SCWT Design, consisting of 5 members, plans to utilize the engineering process to produce a design feasible to meet the forementioned capabilities.

Small Scale Wind Turbine

MAE

Integrating renewable energy sources into everyday life is of paramount importance to a self-sustainable world. The Fall 2022 Small Scale Wind Turbine (SCWT) is a project that will design a portable wind turbine that harnesses wind as a natural resource to power devices. Prioritizing portability and efficiency, our turbine is designed to power camping appliances with a single overnight charge. Our design will be lightweight, cost-efficient, and easily accessible to display its practicality in camping situations. The SCWT project consists of designing and manufacturing processes to produce a turbine designed to meet engineering standards. 

Small Scale Wind Turbine

MAE

With the deplenishing supply of fossil fuels, worsening consequences of pollution, and rising need demand for energy, engineers have sought for alternative means of sustaining our modern lifestyle. Wind turbines have proven to be a valuable source of renewable energy across the world as they can harness natural forces while minimizing the negative effects on the environment. We seek to apply this technology on a local scale by designing and planning the manufacture of minature wind turbines for use by campers. Our goal is to create a convenient portable vertical wind turbine that is small enough to be carried in a backpack, assemblable by few people in the wilderness, and capable of charging multiple electronic devices overnight.

Small-Scale Wind Turbine Prototype

MAE

This project encompasses one of many alternative solutions to a transition into clean and renewable energy sources. Wind turbines, when designed and constructed properly, can yield and store a substantial amount of electricity all from wind energy. To keep up with the high power demands of local electrical grids, most modern day turbines need to be immensely large in size, sometimes up to 500 ft tall, in order to generate enough electricity. Recently, more thought is being put into harnessing the efficiency of traditional turbines but on a smaller scale to satify more domestic electrical needs. The Small-Scale Wind Turbine projects here at UCI is involved with Collegiate Wind Competition and focuses on this small scale optomization of modern day giants.

Solar Cooker

MAE

Welcome to our website, where we present our latest project aimed at designing, building, and testing a highly efficient solar cooker that uses only energy from the sun. Our objective is to create a cooker that works on sunny days, regardless of the angle of the sun, and that is inexpensive, compact, and lightweight. We believe that cooking with solar energy can be a sustainable and affordable solution in areas where fuel sources are limited, and that's why we focused on using easy-to-find materials and designing a cooker that is easy to assemble and disassemble. Our ultimate goal is to create a prototype that can cook something within a reasonable amount of time, making it a practical solution for people in need. We invite you to learn more about our project and follow our progress as we work towards creating a better future through sustainable cooking solutions.

Steerable Mechanical Walker

MAE

The goal of the Fall 2022 Steerable Mechanical Walker project is to design and build a walking machine with an advanced leg system, a single drive motor for movement, and a single servo motor for steering. The design will be remotely controlled, and should allow the walker to move 1.5 ft/s and follow a circle of 6ft diameter. The team has to provide digital and physical models of two prototypes with test data and demonstration videos with it.

Steerable Mechanical Walker: Gonk Walker

Steerable Mechanical Gonk Walker
MAE

For the Winter 2023 quarter, the Steerable Mechanical Walker project focuses on creating a robot that can move and turn without human interaction. This iteration of the walker will use four legs which will allow for movement around its environment. This version of the walker is inspired by the GNK power droids from the Star Wars franchise. The design of the mechanical walker will have a Gonk droid theme which will give it "personality". The ultimate goal of the Gonk Walker is to be capable of steering autonomously in preparation for the day it is tested against the MAE 106 robots.

Executive Summary

SunSpot Cookers

MAE

Background:

The pirpose of this project is to design a fully functioning solar cooker with a portable, efficient, easy-to-use option for food preparation under non-ideal conditions. In addition, we hope to understand companies' design, engineering, and manufacturing processes to sell products from this project. Finally, the knowledge obtained from this project will provide insight into how industries organize projects for engineers to complete under specific guidelines. 

Goals And Objectives:

Sustainability Decathlon - Domestic Hot Water for a Sustainable ADU

MAE

Background

Domestic Hot Water for a Sustainable ADU is an undergraduate design project for Sustainability Decathlon (OCSD23) which is a collegiate design-and-build competition held in Orange County focused on sustainable housing. It challenges university teams to design and build model solar-powered homes that address climate change and California’s housing needs.

Sustainability Decathlon - HVAC and Thermal Storage for a Sustainable ADU

MAE

This team is responsible for the design of an affordable and efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system appropriate for an Accessory Dwelling Unit in a low-income neighborhood of Orange County. In addition to HVAC, the team is to determine if a thermal storage system is feasible given project requirements and constraints. This engineering subteam is part of the larger UCI and Orange Coast College partnership team competing in the Orange County Sustainability Decathlon. 

Sustainability Decathlon Efficient Water Usage and Recycling

MAE

The intention of this project is to design affordable water recycling, saving, and bioremediation systems to increase the economic efficiency of water use, and to educate people who live in several ADUs about certain positive habits for saving water. We are not considering the complicated structure to merely elevate the purity of recycled water as much as we can, but to develop a comprehensive plan to save the cost of water from recycling and education. The team is focusing on several fields to accomplish the common goal. The bioremediation system uses a physical filtration device to purify the water to a certain level that meets California Legal standards for two primary purposes, toilet flushing and irrigation. The smart system detects and further filtrates the grey water. And to help the people who live in the ADU develop good habits of using water, physical barriers to wasting water are vital. These physical barriers will not lower the quality of life for these people, but help them to develop good habits. Our intention is to decrease the cost and generate a humanized system to help people and maybe help the world with the decreasing freshwater source condition in the future.

UAV FORGE

EECS
MAE

Project Description: 

UAV Forge is a multidisciplinary engineering design team focusing on designing, manufacturing, programming, and testing autonomous aerial vehicles. The design aims to fulfill the constraints that allow the team to participate in the AUVSI SUAS 2023 competition season.

UAV Forge

EECS
MAE

UAV Forge is a multidisciplinary engineering design team that focuses on the design, manufacturing, programming and testing of autonomous aerial vehicles. The design aims to fulfill the constraints that allows the team to participate in the AUVSI SUAS 2021-2022 competition season. The AUVSI competition requires that the system’s UAV have autonomous flight capabilities, ability to perform object avoidance of stationary and dynamic objects, the ability to do object detection, localization, and classification. The system must also perform an airdrop task wherein UAV Forge will be manufacturing an assembly that will allow the UAV to drop payloads that safely land on designated targets. Though the emphasis for this year’s team is to perform well in the competition setting, the primary objective is to ensure the undergraduate students participating in the project apply their engineering skills to a compelling real-world problem.

UAV Forge MAE 189 (Spring 2023)

UAV Forge
EECS
MAE

Background

“The SUAS competition is designed to foster interest in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), stimulate interest in UAS technologies and careers, and to engage students in a challenging mission. The competition requires students to design, integrate, report on, and demonstrate a UAS capable of autonomous flight and navigation, remote sensing via onboard payload sensors, and execution of a specific set of tasks. The competition has been held annually since 2002.

UC Irvine Solar Airplane

MAE

We are a group of UCI engineering students with the goal to design, build, and fly a solar-assisted aircraft. Our project's aim is twofold: to prove the viability of solar power in airplanes/drones, and create a device that can assist in humanitarian aid missions caused by climate change. 

UCI CubeSat

EECS
MAE

 

BACKGROUND:

UCI CubeSat is a student-led effort to design, manufacture, and launch a 2U nanosatellite to conduct experiments on a UCI research payload called a variable emissivity device (VED).

These experiments aim to ascertain whether the VED will be viable for use as a cheap, reliable method of thermal management on future spacecraft. UCI's CubeSat, AntSat1, will relay data on performance in various degrees of solar exposure and at varying adjustable emissivity values while in orbit.

 

OBJECTIVES:

UCI CubeSat

EECS
MAE

The CubeSat team at UCI is a student-led effort to launch a 2U nanosatellite into orbit to test two UCI research payloads. The satellite operates with five subsystems (Power/Payload, Communications, Avionics, Structures/Thermal, and Systems Engineering), in addition to housing two payloads. 

BACKGROUND:

UCI CubeSat Solar Panel Deployment Device

MAE

Background:

The Solar Panel Deployment project aims to design a functional deployment mechanism for the solar panels on the 2U satellite from the UCI CubeSat team. The goal is to design, manufacture, and test a prototype version of the deployment device to be used on the CubeSat team's satellite. 

Objectives:​

UCI Design, Build, Fly 2022-2023

MAE

AIAA Design, Build, Fly is a national competition held annually for colleges to design and build a remote control aircraft. The theme for this year’s competition is electronic warfare, where our design team, named the UCI Aerial Anteaters, will maximize the transportation range of an electronics payload and antenna. Until competition day in April, our team will design the aircraft to ensure each mission is successful while maximizing the number of points received. This year's missions include carrying an electronic payload for an endurance run, as well as attaching an antenna to the end of the aircraft’s wing to simulate a jamming antenna. This team consists of students from all year levels working to design and fabricate an aircraft for this competition.

UCI Rocket Project (Liquids) Pressure Testing Unit (PTU)

MAE

The UCI Rocket Project PTU is a project whose goal is to design a pressure testing system that can safely and accurately pressure test components used by the Liquid Rocket Team on their current Preliminary Test Rocket and be adaptable to their next generation rocket. The designed PTU will improve upon UCI Rocket Project's current pressure testing equipment that is difficult to use and requires multiple people to setup. It will be remotely controlled so that the operator is at a safe distance and pressure transducers will provide accurate data. The PTU will be able to test relief valves, calibrate pressure regulating valves, and leak test all components.

UCI Rocket Project Solids: Aircore Team

Image depicting the logo and name of the UC Irvine Rocket Project as the title.  Under the title are the words "Aircore System". A white cylinder with the words “CO2, CH4, and CO” is inside and a white rocket is circling the cylinder. A picture of the earth with a dark background is the background image.
MAE

UCI Rocket Project Solids Team will be building its first large collective rocket to compete in the 10k Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Propulsion Category at the 2023 Spaceport America (SA) Cup. Our team is tasked to design an AirCore Atmospheric Sampling System that will collect and test air samples from different altitudes, allowing the team to compare the data and analyze its differences in gas concentrations. As a team, we aim to combine our interdisciplinary knowledge to meet the system requirements which include: weighing at least 4 kg, being able to withstand 10 Gs of force, be at least 3Us, ground tested, and survive 4 launch attempts. Our group aims to familiarize ourselves with the engineering design process and apply critical thinking to design a fully functional payload system for our rocket.

UCI Spacecraft Thermal Management Systems

CBE
MAE

Research Mission: The goal of Spacecraft Thermal Management Systems (STMS) is to be developing several Variable Emissivity Device prototypes, or VEDs, one of which is to be applied as payload to a CubeSat and launched into Low-Earth Orbit. This VED will mitigate thermal loads from the sun and internal satellite electronics and offers a low-cost thermal control solution to absorb or reject heat from spacecraft. We work closely with the UCI CubeSat project to coordinate the VED and satellite operations. 

Validation of XFOIL for 2D Airfoils

MAE

The project's aim is to test and validate XFOIL, a numerical analysis tool that calculates the lift and drag forces experienced by 2D airfoil shapes. The goal of this team is to design and execute an experimental campaign to acquire reliable data for the validation of XFOIL's numerical prediction method.  The campaign involves a set of carefully coordinated wind tunnel experiments and numerical calculations to document methods and results.  With the application of the acquired data, XFOIL’s predictability is assessed through the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) framework adapted to assess modeling and simulation methods.

Walking Support for Improved Mobility and Independence

Team Logo
MAE

The elderly commonly rely on canes and walkers for balance and gait support. Similarly, crutches are commonly used after injury. All of these devices are cumbersome, force unnatural gait patterns, and greatly limit their arms. Several exoskeleton designs have been proposed in research, but they tend to be heavy and actively controlled (i.e. with motors). They also are difficult to don and doff, which does not make them very user friendly. The goal of this project is to design a passive semi-rigid assistive device that will provide moderate stability to gait and assist walking activities, while not restricting arm use.

World’s Smallest Autonomous Aquatic Robot for Emerging Contaminant Detection (REMORUS)

MAE

From the time a creature is first born, food is the number one priority for its survival. Locating and capturing its food effectively is crucial, and in robotics this process is called foraging. Our goal is to develop the smallest functional aquatic autonomous robot capable of finding a power source to recharge. Remorus must swim autonomously in water and return back to its charging station before the battery runs out of charge. Potential applications of such technology include swarms of such robots performing various tasks. Several colleges and universities have designed their own micro Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV), like MIT’s Blue Bot and Harvard’s RoboBees which demonstrate the capabilities of robot swarms. The project may act as a proof of concept for future aquatic micro-robots and demonstrate the possibility of using AUV swarms to detect water contaminants and enter the human body to perform procedures.

Zot Bot

MAE

Tired of walking across campus or waiting for the Starships to deliver your food? This all terrain vehicle is designed to deliver food across Aldrich Park to hungry UCI Anteaters! Since Starships are not meant to go offroad, they must travel around Aldrich Park to get to their destination. The Zot Bot team plans to achieve fast and reliable food deliveries with its vehicle's ability to drive through Aldrich Park and traverse any hills, holes, and other obstacles that it may face. Through research, design, and testing, the team looks to manufacture a Zot Bot not only rugged enough to withstand the Aldrich Park terrain, but also stable enough to preserve your food.