Design Day Fall 2023
Design Day is an opportunity to share our Senior Design Showcase with the public. Seniors work in groups with faculty to design and test projects.
Senior Design Projects: Fall 2023
A wearable battery bank which provides enough charge to allow the user to make a few phone calls.
Team: Frances Dowell (team lead), Jaren Hougaard, Bray Jensen, Jeewon Kim, Luca Rosenberg, Zac Seh, Tyrees Sidberry
Advisor: Randall Morrill
Create a power bank that can be worn as a watch and can charge a phone enough to make a few phone calls.
Team: Brissa Jackson (team lead), Bjorn Johnsson, Cassandra Polglase, Max Lieberstein, Matthew Cooper, Caleb Fry
Advisor: Dr. Roundy
The Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) has collaborated with the University of Utah’s Department of Mechanical Engineering to devise a solution for efficiently removing corrugated board scraps from one of their machines, the Ward Flexo 329. This machine is responsible for cutting various patterns and creating perforated cuts in corrugated boards, enabling them to be shaped into the respective boxes for shipping various commodities. The issue at hand is that these cut scraps fail to evacuate properly and become dislodged beneath the machine, necessitating shutdowns for maintenance and incurring downtime, which translates to additional costs for PCA.
The primary objective of this project is to design a nylon-bristle roller that seamlessly integrates into the machine, effectively addressing the evacuation of scraps and thereby reducing unnecessary downtime for the Ward Flexo 329.
Team: Sabrina Su (team lead), Nate Beynon, Tosh Davis, Mason Hantet, Jake Sobelman, Trevor VanRoosendaal
Advisor: Dr. A.K. Balaji
Stadler would like to showcase the quality of their trains to a greater audience beyond those who can visit their manufacturing facilities. This will be achieved by designing and building a 1:4 scale model of their FLIRT H2 passenger train that can be transported to various conferences around the United States and will be capable of running on a 1:4 size track. The scope of the project is to complete the 3-D model of the train, along with 2-D drawings and detailed manufacturing instructions that will be used to build the train in the future. An upcoming Capstone team will be tasked with completing the design of the propulsion system.
Team: Gavin Thomas (team lead), Francisco Hernandez, Miguel Meneses, Ricky Retana
Advisor: Dr. d’Entremont
Integration of a Fridge into the Operator’s Cabin of FLIRT.
Team: Dominik Brazerol (team lead), Jignze Zhang, Adam Fogel
Advisor: Dr. d’Entremont
Upgrade and standardize 40 year-old contour machines for Walker Tape Co. to increase product throughput and operator safety. We are focused on contour ejection (chute) and control/counting systems.
Team: Grant Johnson (team lead), Zach Olson, Todd Oldham, Sebastien de Villiers, Josh Greer, James Lewis
Advisor: Dr Huebner
Dr. Jake Abbott of the University of Utah is currently researching the use of eddy currents as a method of manipulating space debris to remove it from Earth’s orbit. So far, their testing setup has only allowed them to manipulate a metal object on a 2D plane, in three degrees of freedom. The goal of our project is to develop a method of simulating microgravity for a nonmagnetic metal object that will allow Dr. Abbott’s team to manipulate the metal object in 3D space, or six degrees of freedom.
Team: Emma VanderHoeven (team lead), Kian Ben-Jacob, Lauren Martin, Alex Newey, Ricky Scoggan, Dawson Wall
Advisor: Dr. Jake Abbott
The L3Harris HETA project requires the design and construction of a laminar-flow wind tunnel. The purpose of the design is to allow the sponsor to test complex, 3-D printed heat exchanger (heat sink) designs and evaluate their heat-transfer performance before manufacture. Due to the complex geometries of the heat exchangers, performing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis is prohibitively expensive and computationally exhaustive. The HETA will provide the sponsor with a more cost-effective way to test new heat exchanger designs for use in their products.
Team: Ben Estill (team lead), Shaina Floyd, Chad Phillips, Kishan Viswanathan
Advisor: Randall Morrill
The semi-portable water treatment system is designed to be deployed near a body of water such as a river or lake. This will supply clean potable to backcountry users such as hikers, bikers, and climbers in the warmer months of the year. The system will be solar powered and have an autonomous cleaning feature.
Team: Jack Eskeland (team lead), Kolbi Dietmeier, Andrew Barker, Esther Hammon, Declan Picot
Advisor: Dr Metzger
A safe, adjustable, and sporty upgrade for the T.R.A.I.L.S. TetraSki. The upgrades include a newly designed headrest and a working prototype of a bucket seat. This project aims to make skiing more accessible for a variety of people with complex disabilities.
Team: Nathan Wood (team lead), Alex Stevens, Justin Brown, Dallin Butler, Santiago Serna, Matthew Sox, Wyatt Krial
Leads: Dr. Jeffrey Rosenbluth
A three-dimensional computer numerically controlled wire bender designed to create custom wire shapes for any University of Utah mechanical engineering senior design student.
Team: Ethan Christus (team lead), Josh Parrott, Blair Felts, Hunter Klinglesmith, Anderson Boyer, Seth Carroll
Advisor: Randall Morrill
This project seeks to bring Electrochemical Machining (ECM) out of the form tool world and make it so that it can be used in a process that mimics traditional 3-axis CNC milling. This has value because of the issues that are presented with traditionally hard to machine materials that are sensitive to heat and or tool pressure. Since ECM is a non-contact machining process that does not generate significant heat these materials will be able to be treated much like any other with our project.
Team: Jonathan C. Anderson (team lead), Noah Vosburgh, Sam Brown, Mark Urban, Joshua White, Yonadab De La Cruz
Advisor: Dr. A.K. Balaji