ME 491 Timelines

Revised: September 8, 2006

MINI PROJECTS (ME 491)

Late November Mini-Project Presentation: 5-minutes or less – Discuss the main concepts (not graded)

Early December (last day of class) - Mini-Project Competitions

Capstone Projects

Last day of class: Capstone Proposals (1-2 pages)

The design brief and main requirements

Design content description

Analysis content description

Verification content description

Capstone Proposal Class Presentations (Mid to late November into early December)

5 minutes

Show Design Content, Analysis content, Verification Content

Late September (or early October)

Form teams of four people for ME 491 Mini-project. The team membership can change later for the Capstone projects in ME 492/3. People who end up in no teams are going to be placed in new teams.

Session before competition

Show and tell (bring your device to class)

Presentation date for the Mini-projects. (5 minutes – not graded)

Last day of class

“Competition” Date

Activities in the Fall term regarding ME 492/3 Capstone Projects

We select the capstone projects in the Fall term and go through the approval procedure for all projects. The approval process involves a team of design faculty who would approve the appropriateness of the proposed project as a capstone design project. All projects must go through this process. By the end of the Fall term all teams should have a project, assigned advisors, industry contacts, and some detailed knowledge of the project requirements.

Tier1 projects: If you have a tentative project like MiniBaja, Formula, HPV, or other ASME, SAE, or professional society projects, including the NASA projects, your team (of four members unless it involves extensive construction) can submit a proposal and seek project approval at any time. Develop your proposals as early as possible and consult with me regarding their appropriateness.

Tier2 projects: If you are working for a company, we like to give your company preference in proposing a design project. If you are interested you should speak to your supervisor about this opportunity and identify some potential design projects. You should then talk to me about the projects, select one, form a team, and prepare a proposal. I can even come to your company with the intention of defining a project.

Tier3 projects: We would find industry-sponsored projects for the remaining teams usually by class presentation of projects. A team interested in a project should let me know as soon as possible before any other team makes a commitment to that project. We would offer as many projects as there are teams (perhaps one or two extra projects) so don’t wait for the perfect project or you may end up with a project no other team selected. We would also have at least two projects where the team membership includes both ME and ECE students.

Tier4 Projects: Occasionally we have internal projects where we need a new laboratory test device or a faculty member needs a research device to be designed. These projects are only acceptable when there is significant interest by a team to work on those projects. Sometime one of you may have a personally-motivated project you like to work on and there is sufficient interest from others to form a team with you. Such projects are acceptable only if you also find an engineer from the community to volunteer as an outside advisor.

Late November

Teams have contacted the sponsors and clearly defined the scope of the project and the deliverables to fit the class requirements. Sometimes a team may not have a project until the beginning of the Winter Quarter – that is all right, no reason to panic.

Mini-Projects

As a part of your ME 491 requirements you are to design and build a simple device to do a specific task. In the last 5 years we have had the following Mini-projects:

1. A device that transports two ping pong balls and a golf ball from a platform into a box. (we have had two variations of this projects so far)

2. A device that shoots a ping pong ball toward a target 6 feet away.

3. A device that transports 8 ounces of water from one cup into another cup 4 feet away.

4. A device that tosses real eggs at a target.

5. A device that climbs a hanging rope

All of these devices incorporated a battery and a motor as power source and operated fully automatically. This year I like to ask the class for ideas and we will select one of the proposed ideas. The ideas are not limited to transportation-type projects but it is important to include moving devices powered by a battery or even a solar device. While the cost of building should be low it is also important to have projects that exclude buying finished products off-the-shelf. This includes projects involving tasks that toy cars can perform. Finally, this is a 2-credit class and you have other things to learn, so don’t be too ambitious about this project.