On December 3, the USC Viterbi Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering hosted USC’s fourth annual AME Senior Project Showcase where nearly 200 students enrolled in AME 441 “Senior Projects Laboratory” shared 38 real-world applications created within a semester's time. Projects ranged topics including regenerative breaking on a rollercoaster, automatic guitar tuning, a robotic suitcase, a prosthetic hand and harvesting energy from wind-induced vibrations.
Inspired by the fact that only about three percent of the world's water is drinkable, this team decided to tackle purification of seawater. Given that most solutions to this problem are large-scale, high-volume, the team aimed to create a prototype that could function in individual homes. By reducing pressure and thus the boiling point required to evaporate the water, the team successfully distilled water reducing ppm for chloride ions (<250 ppm), dissolved solids (<500 ppm) and sodium (<200 ppm).
Students were instructed, from concept to application, by AME Associate Professors Charles Radovich and Yann Staelens, and Lecturers Akshay Potnuru and Robert Antypas. They were also supported by AME's lab team, including Jeffrey Vargas, senior lab technician, and Rod Yates, senior instructional lab technician and lab safety coordinator. Student projects were ultimately ranked based on five categories: originality, design, rigor, graphical display and verbal communications. AME faculty, industry professionals and other staff and faculty participated in the judging.
Said AME Chair Paul Ronney: "I couldn’t be more proud of how far all of you have come in the past four years. Thank you all for being part of the Trojan Family--you will always be a part of the Trojan Family."
In the photo: Charles Radovich (left) and Paul Ronney (right). PHOTO/ ANDREW BAILEY.
All of these projects come from the students' own ideas and creativity. Hopefully this experience--while it might not have been exactly what you expected--is exactly what you needed to go to your next chapter. - Charles Radovich, USC Viterbi Associate Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Practice
What happens if you pop a tire on Mars? This team behind "Optimizing a Super-elastic Tire Structure for Traversing Uneven Terrain" says the Rover's tires are rigid and can sustain damage from sharp objects. Instead, they suggest using a wire mesh material made of nickel titanium, an alloy that is deformable and can take damage. From left to right: Esmeralda Leon, Isabel Brieler, Nithya Chaudhari and Diana Salcedo-Pierce. PHOTO/ANDREW BAILEY.
Next time you travel, don't worry about having your hands full says the team behind this smart luggage--human following robotic suitcase. The students, including Minseok Jeon, Daniella Padilla, Vera
Jeon Ho and Caelan Cheock, used sensors to help the robot identify proper spacing and pacing and developed an algorithm to make sure it could follow the same path as its companion human. PHOTO/ANDREW BAILEY.
Inspired by Professor Alejandra Uranga's paper on blown lift technology, this team--USC Viterbi seniors Kenya Foster, Anokhi Kholwadwala, Snigdha Vayalapadu and Samantha Devapiriam--worked to "Maximize Lift Using a Co-Flow Jet Airfoil." In other words, they tried to use existing flow in a circular, cyclical way, versus losing flow from the system. 3D printing the prototype, which they tested in the wind tunnel, was one of the most difficult parts of the process. In the photo: Samantha Devapiriam (left) and Kenya Foster (right). PHOTO/ANDREW BAILEY.
The team behind "Fractal Gripper Performance Characterization" won best in show. As manufacturing-focused engineers, the students--Arthur Levine, Avi Anklesaria, Gabriel Klorman and Steven Louis--were inspired by the inefficiencies and lack of flexibility of end effectors in gripping brittle objects. They designed and built an actuated gripping mechanism that can interface with 3D printed fractal and flat plate grippers, and then tested it with different objects to better understand how it performed with different shapes and loads. They hope the data will lead to a possible solution for a universal gripping end effector. PHOTOS/ AVI ANKLESARIA.
Wind energy is key to sustainability. While wind turbines work on a larger scale to supply energy across the world, this group explored harvesting energy from wind-induced vibration for smaller scale, individual home energy production. The team, including Lizzy Bellon, Jordan Frantz, Bobby Schick, Natalie Smith and Olivia Vigano, says that creating these smaller alternatives to traditional wind turbines can allow for usage in urban areas, as they are easier to put together/ transport and take up less space. The device is tunable and harvest the most power when the frequency of the air flowing through the structure (shedding frequency) matches the natural frequency of wind vibration. PHOTO/ ANDREW BAILEY.
Current prosthetic hands are heavy or don't offer enough power or support, said AME senior Brennan Hall. Thus, this team, which includes Brennan Hall, Claire Haas, Hanwool Yun, Juliana Badra and Yunqian Zhang, created a prosthetic using shape memory alloys (SMAs), which are light, strong and can return to their original shape after being stretched, better mimicking human muscles. PHOTO/ANDREW BAILEY.
Credits:
Andrew Bailey