ME 333 Suggested Final Projects

Students working on the projects listed below may begin their work right away, upon approval. Students wishing to propose their own project must write a proposal of approximately 3-5 pages, due in class Thurs Feb 7, with at least one drawing (hand drawing OK) showing the whole device, a paragraph or two discussing the overall function and goal of the project, as well as discussions of the sensors and actuators you will use, the computation, and the mechanical design. Although you do not have to have worked out all the details, the proposal should show that you've thought about how the whole project will work. It can be a fun whimsical project, or it can solve a practical problem. Your project should creatively use simple sensors and actuation, but your proposal should be beyond simply applying what we do in lab. Previous projects are a good indicator of what's possible.

Projects will be judged on functionality (does it do what it's supposed to do?), reliability (does it do it every time?), ambitiousness (is the problem challenging? did you contribute a new capability to the wiki?), and aesthetic appeal (is it packaged nicely? is it pleasing to watch or fun to interact with?).

Recommended Projects

Experiment in Granular Flows

(Client: Prof. Rich Lueptow.) You will build a device to support experiments studying how grains separate or mix under forcing. The device consists of a sphere partly filled with granular matter that is rotated about two orthogonal axes by independent motors under PIC control. The user sends the desired motion profile via the "serial" interface in Matlab, and the PIC interprets it and executes it. Upon successful completion, the PIC signals the Matlab program that the motion is complete. To get an idea of what the actuation might look like, check out the servosphere from ME 433 Advanced Mechatronics in 2005. The sphere must be releasable. Maximum speed of the sphere is 60 RPM, and its diameter is approximately 20 cm.

Piezo-controlled Vibratory Clock

You will build a horizontal circular platform that is actuated from underneath by three compliantly-attached piezoactuator stacks. The vibration of the platform causes an hour "hand" on top of the platform to slide around the circular platform, impelled by friction forces due to the vibration. If you bump the hand away, it slowly moves back to the correct hour. You may find other imaginative uses for your device. Check out this website to see more information on how this works and some videos of parts moving around a vibrated plate.

Light-gradient Detecting Mobile Robot

You will build a mobile robot with three tri-color light sensors. The purpose of this robot is to track moving colors projected by a ceiling-mounted LCD projector pointing downward. By calculating the color gradient, the robot can move to the region of maximum redness, blueness, or greenness, for example. It is a model of a robot attempting to find the source of an oil spill, or the center of a chemical plume.

Vibration Suppression

You will build an active vibration-suppression system. It will consist of a mass attached to a wall by a spring and moving on a linear slide, and attached on the other side to an ordinary audio speaker. You will mount an accelerometer on the mass, and, based on that signal, actuate the speaker to try to damp the mass's vibration as quickly as possible. Demonstration will include showing the accelerometer signal on an oscilloscope (or collected in Matlab) when control is off and when control is on. Another good challenge is to develop a controller that makes the mass move along an arbitrary periodic motion; your controller must "learn" to apply the right periodic control signal to make the mass follow the desired periodic motion. The desired and actual motion can be displayed on an oscilloscope or a Matlab program.