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This is a narrated presentation.��It is recommended that you download�the file and use PowerPoint to watch it.�

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ME 4054W Design Projects

A unique opportunity to engage Mechanical Engineering seniors in

a design challenge of your choosing

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Topics

  • Course Description
  • Course Logistics
  • Client Role
  • Best Types of Project
  • Project & Proposal Examples
  • IP and Confidentiality
  • Seizing the Opportunity

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Students apply learned skills to your project

  • ME 4054W is the capstone design course required for all ME students. It is offered each Fall and Spring semester.
  • Most of the students taking the course are graduating seniors.
  • Staff provides instruction on a customer-focused, analysis-driven design process.
  • Progress on the implementation of the design process is assessed by staff throughout the semester.

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Benefits of participation

  • Cost: Clients pay no fees to participate. Their only out of pocket cost is paying for any physical prototypes. The student team must submit a budget for client approval before making any prototyping expenditures.
  • Facilities: Students have access to the Anderson Student Innovation Labs with its 3D printers, laser cutter, wood and metal cutting shops, 3D scanners, and more. Many of these resources are available at no cost.

https://cse.umn.edu/andersonlabs/equipment

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Our students can help solve your design challenge

  • Goal: Students apply a customer-focused, analysis-driven design process to solve an open-ended design problem.
  • Teams of 4-6 students work on a project of the client’s choosing for one 15-week semester.
  • The end-of-semester deliverables to the project sponsor (“client”) include:
    • A comprehensive design report
    • All electronic project files (e.g., CAD, analysis)
    • A virtual or physical prototype that has been tested to determine its compliance with the design requirements

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Student-led; client-mentored process

  • Client representatives:
    • Provide project background and rationale
    • Suggest, coach, mentor, guide
    • Provide feedback as project progresses
    • Are not the project manager
    • Benefit from the collective knowledge and skills of the students on their team
    • Support the UMN ME department and its students through their participation

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Client Representative Responsibilities

  • Attend and run the project kick-off meeting (all other meetings are run by the student team).
  • Meet with the team weekly. Meetings can be virtual.
  • Review, approve and sign-off on important team assignments.
  • Participate in the Mid-Project Design Review.
  • Participate in the Final Design Review.
  • Average weekly time commitment is 1.5 hours.

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Open-ended projects provide best outcomes

  • Projects can come from many sources including, but not limited to:
    • Product engineering and R&D
    • Engineering test labs
    • Manufacturing engineering and test
    • Entrepreneurs
    • Researchers
  • A key attribute is that the project is open-ended
  • The senior design project coordinator will help to align project proposals with the client’s and course needs

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Past project examples

  • Cost reduction and performance improvement of an IC engine-powered construction machine
  • Haptic feedback steering system for a floor cleaning machine
  • Hydraulic flow meter calibration cart
  • Flexible (multi-model) end-of-line pressure sensor testing device
  • Milk crate palletizing machine

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Past project examples

  • Spring fatigue test fixture
  • Three-wheel row bike human power fitness machine
  • Numerous medical devices
    • Variable stiffness ankle-foot orthosis
    • Pediatric upper limb exoskeletal motion device
    • Wheelchair simulator for ergonomic wheelchair design
    • 3D printing anatomically accurate, patient-specific organ models
    • Interventional Radiology: Decreasing the Y90 procedure to a single session

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Past project proposal text examples

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Past project proposal text examples

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Past project proposal text examples

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Project Background:

Children with cerebral palsy are generally prescribed a plastic ankle-foot orthosis (AFO) to help with their walking. The rotary stiffness and the neutral angle of the AFO is prescribed depending on the characteristics of the child’s gait, but often ends up not being the optimal stiffness or neutral angle for that child. The Durfee Lab is developing a novel technology to semi-automate the AFO prescription process. The Autotuner is a clinic-based AFO that can vary its stiffness and neutral angle under computer control. The long-range goal is to use a machine learning algorithm to tune AFO properties as the child walks in the clinic and then to send a prescription for the optimal properties to the orthotist who can make a traditional plastic AFO that has those properties. In 2018 the Durfee Lab conducted a pilot clinical trial at Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare to test the concept using a tethered version of the Autotuner. In 2020, a master’s student completed the design of an untethered version of the Autotuner that has a predicted weight of about 400 grams. A plastic AFO, however, weighs about 250 grams. There is a need to create an Autotuner design that comes in with an all-in weight that is no more than about 300 grams.

Project Objectives:

Using the concept of the 2020 Autotuner design, create a revised design that is significantly lighter while maintaining the performance specifications of the 2020 design. The 2020 design used miniature hydraulics to actuate the tuning. In this project small, onboard electric motors will be used to actuate the tuning. The challenge is to implement the change in a weight-minimal manner. The team will deliver their design as a digital twin implemented as a complete and detailed computer model. Along with the completed design, the team will deliver the results of performance analyses indicating that the design works to its intended purpose and is lighter than the 2020 design. Physical prototyping could, but is not likely to, be part of this project.

Clients may require that students sign a UMN-approved intellectual property (IP) and/or confidentiality agreement. See the course website (z.umn.edu/me4054, then click on Client Info and Sponsoring a Project) for details.

Will you require students to sign the pre-invention IP assignment agreement? Yes ___ No _X_ Not sure ___

Will you require students to sign the non-disclosure agreement? Yes ___ No _X_ Not sure ___

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Intellectual Property & Confidentiality

  • By University of Minnesota policy, intellectual property generated by a student in this course is owned by the student. If the client wishes, at the start of the semester they can require students to sign a UMN-approved agreement stipulating that student-generated IP will be assigned to the client.
  • Clients can also ask students to sign a UMN-approved one-way non-disclosure agreement. The work done by the students is disclosed to the course instructors, but it not publicly disclosed.
  • The UMN-approved pre-invention assignment and non-disclosure agreements can be found in the Forms section of the course website.

They are the only legal agreements the students can be asked to sign.

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For further information contact:

Brad Bohlmann�Senior Design Project Coordinator�Department of Mechanical Engineering�University of Minnesota

bohlmann@umn.edu

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Course website is z.umn.edu/me4054

We invite you to join us in this opportunity!

The Client Info page has additional details and a link to the project proposal form.