Senior Design Projects
The Senior Design Project course is a two-semester sequence taken in a student's senior year to provide a "capstone" design experience in which the student draws upon earlier course work. The fall semester is devoted to conceptualization and design, and the spring semester is devoted to the construction and testing of a prototype.
The class is divided into teams of two to four students and meets weekly for a two-hour period for teams to report on their activities. An additional weekly meeting time is scheduled for each team to assure continuing progress. Formal written reports and oral presentations are required at the end of each semester.
One of the most important components of the course is the opportunity for students to interact with practicing engineers and to become involved with all phases of a project; i.e. purchasing, scheduling, machining, etc. Sponsors are industrial organizations, and in some cases, organizations within Hopkins. The commitment of a sponsor involves both money and time.
The base contribution by a Senior Design sponsor is $12,000 to $15,000. If additional funds are warranted, modification to the project will be made on a mutual basis. The money is used to purchase components and machining time, and to pay for items such as telephone calls and travel. These projects all involve the design and construction of a device for the sponsor, and that device is delivered to the sponsor at the end of the course along with a comprehensive engineering report that summarizes all of the work done on the project. Any unused monies go into a general account to support the course.
The sponsor must designate a contact engineer who will visit campus at least three times - once in early September to present the project requirements, once in December for a progress report, and in May for the final report. Each team also maintains regular contact with its assigned engineer.
A panel of judges from our local ASME chapter selected Project SWAMP as the top team this year on the basis of their outstanding and professional solution to a very challenging problem.
2007-2008 PROJECTS
PROJECT SUUVAS
Sponsor: Northrop Grumman Corporation – Undersea Systems
Contact: Dr. David Smallwood, Mr. Daniel Barvenik
This project is to address the lack of non-propulsive anchoring functionality available in Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV)As the usage of UUVs in the commercial, military, and research science sectors increase, missions for UUVs have expanded as well. A result of that expansion is a need for UUVs to be anchored in an energy efficient manner, preferably without the use of propulsion, to provide a globally static sensor platform. The team was tasked to design, build and test an anchoring system for a small UUV which is reliable, effective, and consumes minimal energy.
Project Designers: Patrick Brandon, Jason Cuthbert, William Parker
PROJECT REARM
Sponsor: Baltimore Gas & Electric Company
Contact: Mr. Bruce Hirsch
This project involves creating a safe way for technicians to disconnect a high voltage (13kV or 35 kV) connection to a device such as a transformer. The point of connection is called an elbow, and it contains the components that allow such large voltages to be brought into the device. When disconnections are now made, the present methods are risky at best, major arcing can occur, and the technicians are required to wear hot, cumbersome gear. The team was tasked to design, build and test a means to allow remote disconnecting of an elbow from a device such as a transformer or a junction box.
Project Designers: Kyle Azevedo; Julie Blumreiter; Doo Hyun Lee
PROJECT ELVIS
Sponsor: Lockheed Martin Corporation – Maritime Systems & Sensors
Contact: Mr. Alexander Boon
Lockheed Martin is developing systems that will allow non-lethal incapacitation of enemy ships at sea during combat situations. One such means involves destruction of a ship’s propellers with a “Running Gear Entanglement System” (RGES). The RGES consists of long segments of polypro rope to which are periodically affixed loops of an extremely strong Honeywell material called Spectra. When deployed, the floating RGES rope becomes entangled in the ship’s propellers as the ship passes over the rope which will routinely jam and/or break the propellers. The goal of this project was to design, build and test a fully operational, full scale prototype of a new simple and reliable RGES Deployment Module (RDM).
Project Designers: Andrew Zuckerman, Andrew Rocca, Erik Phillips
PROJECT SMURV
Sponsor: General Dynamics Robotic Systems (GDRS)
Contacts: Mr. Josh Summer
This project focuses on the development of a rigid deployable sensor mast to be used onboard the GDRS Tactical Autonomous Combat Chassis (TAC-C). The TAC-C is a tactical unmanned ground vehicle designed for high-speed off-road performance in demanding military environments. The deployable sensor mast will be mounted to the TAC-C and will be subjected to the same conditions. The mast must be remotely deployable and capable of maintaining stability while supporting the sensor payload.
Project Designers: George Karikas, Chris Dorbian, Chris Hemmerle, Rajiv Shenoy
PROJECT SNUCLE HAND
Sponsors: Southwest Research Institute
Contacts: Dr. Fernando Ferrante
As part of a major US Government program to allow for the safe storage and disposal of high-level radioactive wastes from commercial nuclear power plants, SwRI has been tasked with evaluating each aspect of this complex system and assisting the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory commission in determining whether it should be licensed for construction. The emphasis of this project was to evaluate the equipment that would be used to handle spent nuclear fuel assemblies at a location adjacent to the facility where these assemblies would be placed or permanent disposal and may, in the interim, be stored to facilitate waste cooling.
Project Designers: Luis Escobar, Sun-Hee Park, Nate Evans, Tsahai Phillip
PROJECT MADE
Sponsor: Pitney Bowes
Contact: Mr. John Masotta, Mr. David Purcell, Mr. Mark MacLeod
Pitney Bowes designs and manufactures mail sorter systems that handle large volumes of inbound mail. The basic building blocks of these sorters are “pockets,” which hold similar types of mail after sorting has occurred. The speed at which mail can be sorted depends heavily on the speed of the “deflectors” which route the mail through different paths of these very large machines. The team was tasked to design, build and test a solution that will allow higher-speed operation of a pocket deflector on a mail sorting system.
Project Designers: Bulent Kalafat, Antoine Joseph, Alek Koenig
PROJECT MR PIB
Sponsor: National Federation of the Blind
Contact: Mr. Mark A. Riccobono
The objective of this project is to design, build, test and deliver an inexpensive Braille creating machine. There have been two similar previous Hopkins Senior Design projects (BPEN and IBRAIL), but this project is unique in its own right. This project must interface with a standard Braille guide Slate, be made for less than $3-500 in quantities of 10,000 or more, must be rugged and use standard paper.
Project Designers: Ankit Sharma, Darren Pinney, Christopher Ryan
PROJECT SWAMP
Sponsor: JHU Applied Physics Laboratory
Contact: Dr. Mehran Armand, Mr. Michael Kutzer
In recent years, UUV research has looked more at biological systems as a source of inspiration for propulsion. One such project is inspired by the hunting habits of the black ghost knifefish. While hunting, this fish is able to perform maneuvers while holding its body almost entirely rigid. To achieve these maneuvers, the knifefish relies mostly on a long undulating fin on its underside. The goal of this project was to design, build and evaluate a fully operational device capable of producing an undulating motion similar to the modes seen on the knifefish and varying the amplitude, frequency (RPM), and wavelengths of undulation during operation.
See the movie!
Project Designers: Ross Burns, Makibi Tagaki, Chris Blizzard
PROJECT SCAM
Sponsor: The Army Research Laboratory
Contacts: Mr. Joshua D. T. Houck
The Army Research Laboratory Sensor and Electron Devices Directorate uses a multitude of toxic gases in the research & development of new specialty electronic materials and devices for MEMS, NEMS and other technologies. Chlorine, Fluorine and hydrogen sulfide are some of the fundamental gases that are occasionally (but rarely) released into the toxic gas mitigation system as a by-product of the material processing or as result of a failure of the engineer controls in place to safely store and distribute these toxic gases. The team was tasked with creating a process and /or system to reduce the large quantities of caustic that are now used to maintain pH, and the degradation caused by the build-up of salt scale on system components.
Project Designers: Joshua Doe, Ted Lee
Check out the 2008-2009 PROJECTS
Check out the 2006-2007 PROJECTS
Check out the 2005-2006 PROJECTS
Check out the 2004-2005 PROJECTS
Check out the 2003-2004 PROJECTS