Florida Tech is mainly a technical school focused on engineering. All engineering majors require the students to work on a design project in their senior year. The purpose of the senior design projects is to provide undergraduate students with real life design project experience. In all engineering majors a senior design project is necessary in order to graduate.
This year the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering seniors are working on the following design projects. Some of the ventures are collaborated with other departments.
Based on the Von Karmen's Institute's Longshot Wind
tunnel this senior design project focuses on redesigning the wind
tunnel so that the simulated environments could be used to
further improve knowledge about hypersonic flights to enable
safer flights.
David Pontal and Yannick Barron demonstrate how hypersonic properties will be calculated and observed using the Longshot Wind Tunnel.
For further reference:
http://www.vki.ac.be/ar-dept/dc/00-01/francke.pdf A student report on experiments conducted in the LongShot Wind Tunnel
http://www.worthey.net/windtunnels/hyperson.htm A database on hypersonic windtunnels and their capabilities around the world.
Sanjoy Som,Karalyn Woulas, Rita Chiu, Sharif Faroque and Roy Lee stand with their RC airplane.
Roy demonstrating the camera and the elctronics unit of their plane using LABVIEW.
AIRCOPS is a Florida Tech unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) initiative. Its goal is to fly a radio controlled plane from a cockpit integrated ground station. The telemetry from the onboard CCD camera and sensors are sent back and processed using LabVIEW and projected in front of the pilot who controls the plane using a regular yoke, rudder pedals and thrust lever.
The official AIRCOPS webpage:
Jenn Urbauer, Jeremy Ruel and Jay Fantasia present their plane wings and electronics.
Florida tech undergraduate students Nathan Mullenix, Jason Kuehl, Jeremy Ruel, Jay Fantasia, Jenn Urbauer, and Betty Rakotondrabe are creating a prototype Mars mapping plane. The senior design project consists of designing and building a small rocket payload testable here on Earth. The unmanned, remote-controlled aircraft will demonstrate a method of exploring a planetary environment as set forth by NASA's Request for Proposals for the Mars Airplane Package Program.
The original FITSAT webpage:
http://www.fit.edu/AcadRes/engsci/aero/fitsat/fitsat.htm
For further reference:
www.seds.org A website dedicated for space development students and enthusiasts which contains links to other resources in this field.
The SAE team 2002 :Bobby Valacheryil, David Hill, Niraj Patel and Sunij Chacko
Pegasus is the name of the SAE Cargo plane that this team is designing, building and testing with the ultimate goal of participating in the SAE Aerodesign Competition. The designs have to be within the competition guidelines but the aim of the project is to design a remote controlled single-engine plane that can carry a maximum weight. Pegasus will be competing in the closed class of the competetion and therefore has very specific restrictions to abide by.
The official website for pegasus:
For further information:
www.sae.org The official SAE website which contains all the rules and regulations of the event.
Michael Meneses and Tang Wong demonstrate the effects of solenoids on the valves.
Michael Meneses, Tang Wong and Steven Arreteau are working on redesigning car engines by using the electromagnetic valve actuation technology to optimize the engine performance such as better fuel consumption, power and torque.
For further information:
www.afdc.doe.gov Official website of the Office of Transport Technologies, the website has a database with information for all fuel and cars types.
www.extolohio.com Provides information and further references for insulation systems and techonologies related to energy.
The MagLev team Danika Hospedales, Tiffanny Rios and Morgan Plamondon demonstrate the effects of magnetic levitation.
NASA has been yearning to reduce shuttle launch costs, an alternative to the existing shuttle launch procedure is using magnetic levitation to assist shuttles to launch off of rails. The design team currently has the NASA constructed Foster Miller Track as well the Florida Tech Halbach Track which was a precious senior design project, and plans to use the experimental data accumulated to prove the feasibility of the alternative launch mechanism.
For further information:
http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/astptechbriefs/Maglev.pdf Explains more information about magnetic levitation and the probable applications.
The SAE Mini Baja competition requires students to build a off-road vehicle that has the most optimal performance. The ultimate goal of the vehicle is to have a high endurance since the race is on a four hour track. Designs will be judged on cost analysis, acceleration, top speed, braking manueverability and hill climb.
For further information:
www.sae.org The official SAE website which contains all the rules and regulations of the event.
The SAE Formula One car teams objective is to build a formula style race car which satisfies the specifications in the SAE competition. With a restricted engine and car frame, the design team has to design a car that has optimal acceleration, breaking, skip pass, and endurance. The car will be judged on static inspection, engineering design and solo performance trails. One of the constraints for this project is that the product cost of the car must not go above $25 000. One of the goals set by the SAE is that this car be affordable to the average driver. The SAE Formula one Car competition will be held on MAy 15, 2002.
For more information:
www.sae.org The official SAE website which contains all the rules and regulations of the event.
The design team's purpose is to design and test a tune mass damper to try and dampen the vibration of structures during earthquakes. The team built a three storey structure which is supposed to simulate a building. This structure is then subjected to multiple earthquakes to model what happens. Using this information, they want to use and test a tune mass damper to determine if the vibrations have been reduced.
For further information
ww.nd.edu/~tkijewsk A Notre Dame student's explanation of damping and earthquakes.
www.spie.org References to more puclications regarding this topic.