MIE students dominate at Engineering Senior Design Expo with most awards
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MIE students won first place and third place overall at the 28th Annual UIC Engineering Senior Design Expo on April 21, 2017 at the UIC Forum, 725 W. Roosevelt Road, Chicago. MIE teams also picked up 10 of 24 Globe Awards and 11 of 24 Honorable mentions during the event, which was made up of 130 projects presented by more than 500 students throughout the College of Engineering.
The team of Josh Farrell, Ivan Smuk, Aymen Hussein, and Hisham Nakira were the big winners as they took home the first-place Gold Award, which had a prize of $3,000, and a Globe Award for their project Bulk Material Servo Feeder with Material Flare Reduction Mechanism for Industrial Manufacturing.
The team were advised by Lecturer Jonathan Komperda and Ivan Smuk, of Precision Stamping Products, Inc.
The goal of the project Bulk Material Servo Feeder with Material Flare Reduction Mechanism for Industrial Manufacturing is to design a cost-effective servo feeder that can accommodate a larger range of materials.
Increasing the range of these machines to handle smaller thicknesses with a variable reduction mechanism by eliminating the weight of the top feed roller will help to negate these deformations. The specific compressive forces required by each individual material size and type can acquired.
The addition of this innovative design feature will help decrease floor downtime by substantially reducing the manual operation time.
The final design will have a comprehensive operation manual that contains quick reference guides for easy training of employees. Additionally, it is in compliance with all OSHA and federal regulations by finite element analysis software, manufacturing process manuals, safety codes, and basic analytical calculations.
Bronze Award Winning Project
The team of Imran Barolia, Jon Cura, Umar Farooqui, Cassandra Rosa, and Majed Takieddine captured the third-place Bronze Award, which had a prize of $1,000, and a Globe Award for the project Waste Reduction and Streamlining for Next Generation Autothrottle at Woodward MPC.
The team were advised by Professor Michael A. Brown and Michael Remke, of Woodward, MPC in Niles, Illinois.
Woodward manufactures aircraft components, and it is responsible for making throttles, actuators, pedals and other aerospace products including its Next Generation Autothrottle (NGA).
The project is primarily focused on a process performed on each NGA known as termination, which is concerned mostly with wiring contained within the unit, and how some of the electronic pieces communicate.
The goal of this project is to reduce the cycle time of the termination process, reduce variation within the termination process, design a holding system for the unit to be terminated on, and create a termination station to be included in the upcoming NGA cell.
To reach its goal, the team developed several custom solutions. They designed shadow boards to organize tooling, operations were restructured to better optimize the process flow, and fixtures and custom tooling were implemented to reduce material waste.
The project was developed to fit the needs of the NGA product and will continue to evolve with the demands of production.
MIE Senior Design Expo Winners
MIE also dominated the Globe Awards as the teams won 10 of 24 awards. Joining the Gold and Bronze award winners with Globe Awards included:
1. Design and Construction of a Robotic Hand (Neal Kosak, Michael Meyers, Nathanal Garden, Nicholas Conforti),
2. Design of an Optical 3D Coordinate Measuring Machine (Muhammad Zorob, Szymon Mirek, Jeffrey Konecki, Mario Banuelos),
3. UIC Water Usage Analysis and Reduction Recommendation (Cheyenne Carollo, Jillian Economy, Amari Griffin, Joanne Moliski, Reena Patel),
4. Formula SAE Car 2018 Suspension Design (Matthew Hanchett, Grant Lenting, Esai Liera, Jordan Bohn),
5. Formula SAE ® 3 Cylinder Engine Intake and Exhaust System Design (Ruben Sanchez, Thomas Gonsowski, Roberto Vallejo, Ellis Jackson),
6. Design of Piezoelectric Atomizing Nasal Spray (Emma Herrick, Jerry Lauricella, Froylan Delgado, Andrew Sandiego),
7. Particulate Capture System for Hobby CNC Mill (Caleb Bernard, Matthew Douglas, Evan Keefe, Spencer Rhoades),
8. Natural Condensate Collection through the use of Renewable Energy and Thermoelectric Cooling (Sarah Cuvala, Peter Fraser, Chris Winiarski, Miguel Leon).
MIE came out on top with 11 of 24 Honorable Mentions, too. The projects were:
1. A Safe Auto-locking Dog Leash,
2. Determining the Best Dust Control Solution for True Value Company,
3. Desktop Injection Molding Device for Instruction and Education,
4. Design of an Adjustable Support for Thermoform Sheet Stock,
5. Traveler Handling Process,
6. Design of a Bench-top Wind Tunnel for STEM Education,
7. Reduction of Undesirable Sound on Retrofit Armrest for Commercial Transportation Seating,
8. Manufacturing Process of Low Frequency Acoustic Damping Metamaterial based on Stucturally-Trapped Bubbles,
9. Numerical Evaluation and Applicability of Designing a Vehicle Body and Cooling System,
10. Conversion of a Gas Moped to Electric Power,
11. Modified Transfer Board.