Engineers are involved in making all the wonders of the future a reality.
Imagine creating new technology – like a flying car, an undersea house, or building virtual reality amusement parks.
What if you could discover and patent a new device that would help surgeons operate on a patient in a distant location or construct a machine that filters CO2 out of the atmosphere?
Don’t just dream it – make it a reality by becoming a Mechanical Engineer!
By becoming a mechanical engineer, you can help solve problems that are important to society. You could be controlling and preventing pollution, developing new medicines, creating advanced technologies, even exploring new worlds!
And most importantly, you’ll have the power to make a difference!
Student Design Projects
The ME Undergraduate curriculum involves strong training in basic engineering science and mathematics with applied experiences and real functions. We combine a comprehensive engineering science foundation with a strong design/construction/testing approach to engineering. At least one significant, hands-on design project is scheduled every year.
Design projects include a Freshman robotics design competition, a Sophomore thermodynamics design competition, and a Junior mechatronics competition in which student teams design, build, and compete with projects that are of their own design.
Mechanical Engineering student’s education is capped by a senior design project. These senior projects include everything from innovative new products for use by harried parents in feeding their babies at night and research on new neo-natal lung ventilators for pre-mature infants, to improved robotic arms and involvement nationwide student design competitions for walking robots. Formula 1 type race cars, mini-Baja race cars, moon buggies and improved human powered vehicles are annual favorites.
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Student Research Projects
Broadly, our students have the opportunity to combine research and education efforts to develop and utilize Information Technology (IT) and curriculum synthesis for the purposes of elevating their level of sophistication. More specifically, computer based technologies (and the associated skills required to effectively use these technologies) will be integrated throughout the curriculum.
The directed intent of this effort will be to bridge the long-standing interfaces that exist between the engineering science, design, control, and product realization components of Mechanical Engineering. The expected outcome will be mechanical engineers quantifiably more adept at developing, synthesizing, and implementing engineering solution strategies in complex systems. These skills broadly reflect the most significant future role of mechanical engineers.
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Trebuchet Competition
What is a trebuchet?
In general, the mechanical artillery of medieval times was inferior to that of the Classical world. The one exception was the trebuchet, an engine worked by counterpoise. Counterpoise engines appeared in the 12th century and largely replaced torsion engines by the middle of the 13th.
The trebuchet worked something like a seesaw. Suspended from an elevated wooden frame, the arm of the trebuchet pivoted from a point about one-quarter of the way down its length. A large weight, or counterpoise, was suspended from the short end, and the long end was fitted with a hollowed-out spoon like cavity or a sling. (A sling added substantially to the trebuchet’s range.) The long end was winched down, raising the counterpoise; a stone or other missile was put into the spoon or sling, and the arm was released to fly upward, hurling the missile in a high, looping arc toward its target. Though almost anything could be thrown, spherical projectiles of cut stone were the ammunition.
Trebuchets might have a fixed counterpoise, a pivoted counterpoise, or a counterpoise that could be slid up and down the arm to adjust for range. Ropes were frequently attached to the counterpoise to be pulled on for extra power. Modern experiments suggest that a trebuchet with an arm about 50 feet (15 meters) long would have been capable of throwing a 300-pound (135-kilogram) stone to a distance of 300 yards (275 meters); such a trebuchet would have had a counterpoise of about 10 tons.
Though the rate of fire was slow, and prodigious quantities of timber and labor were required to build and serve one, a large trebuchet could do serious damage to stone fortifications. The machines were apparently quite accurate, and small trebuchets were useful in sweeping parapets of archers and crossbowmen.
What is the difference between a trebuchet and a catapult?
Trebuchet is powered by counterweight whereas catapult is operated by a sudden release of tension on wooden beam or twisted cords of horsehair, gut, sinew, or other fibers.
Competition
In 2007, the Trebuchet Competition was moved from the Department of Mechanical Engineering to the College of Engineering as part of their K-12 Outreach Programs. For more information please visit their website or contact Diedre Schoenfeld.
