ME 370 Design project
For my ME 370 mechanical design I worked with 3 other students to design a kinetic sculpture that had to eventually connect with a mechanical clock. I made the CAD model of one of our original designs in Creo Parametric.
In order to meet the design requirements we had to incorporate several elements such as a linkage and a timing mechanism.
This exploded view of the design offers a better idea of how it works.
For our final design we made some modifications to reduce the number of moving parts and make the overall mechanism more reliable.
Once again this exploded view gives a better idea of how the mechanism works.
Eco-Illini Supermileage
My most recent project that involved a large amount of CAD was my work in the redesign of the engine base-plate for Eco-Illini Supermileage car team. The team is an engineering orientated RSO (Registered Student Organization) at UIUC which builds a car for the annual Shell Eco-Marathon and SAE Supermileage competitions. Unlike most car-related competitions the primary objective is not necessarily speed but fuel efficiency. As such it is necessary to keep the overall weigh of the car low. One area of the car where the team determined that a reduction in weight was necessary was the base-plate for the engine. Another member of the team an I were tasked with redesigning the base-plate with the overall goal of reducing weight.
Our current base-plate has been water-jetted from a plate of solid aluminum. It has proven to be very sturdy and more than strong enough to support the weight of our engine. However, it is also fairly heavy and removing material from it could help our overall fuel efficiency.
Another issue with the existing base-plate is that the team that made the existing base-plate had made a mistake when taking measurements with two of the holes. Because of this extra material had to be removed with a dremel.
The existing base-plate had already been modeled in SolidWorks so there was already material to work with to base the modification off of.
To start our design process we ran a finite element analysis simulation on the existing base-plate design.
As changes were made to the design we ran additional analysis’ to see how the modifications changed the structural integrity of the base-plate. As can be seen in these simulations the base-plate is still more than capable of supporting the weight of the engine, even with the surplus material removed.
Using finite element analysis to see how the modifications effected the integrity of the design we were able to produce this new model of the base-plate.
ME 270 Final Design Project
For my ME 270 design for manufacturability class I collaborated with 3 other students to redesign a suction cup to reduce the cost of manufacturing. I created a 3D model of an existing suction cup design in PTC creo to compare to our new design. We created a blog that goes into greater detail of our work here.
This exploded view of the assembly shows all the individual components that had to be created for this project.
This photograph gives an exploded view of the suction cup in real life.
In addition to modelling existing designs I was also tasked with coming up with new potential designs. The design shown above was considered as it would have decreased the overall number of components in the design, simplifying the assembly process.
ME 170 Final Design Project
For my ME 170 class I created these simple objects as components for our final project, an attachment to be added to wheelchairs to increase their ease of use
For my ME 170 class I also made this little model rocket design as part of a test of the 3D printers found on campus
Misc High School Projects
As part of my final project for IB Design and Technology I collaborated with a classmate to design a desk fan with 2 power outlets and 4 USB charging ports, this is the final design created in autodesk autocad