ES100 Engineering Design Project
Mission Relief
Background:
Natural disasters always come at unexpected time and cause unwanted suffering. You are
a FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) contractor who provides a remote
controlled vehicle to transport food and medical supply from the warehouse to the
disaster affected area. There are obstacles on route to the relief area. The goal is to move
the most number of packages from the loading area to the unloading area within the
limited time. Radio-controlled land-based vehicle is a simple solution but you need to
manipulate through winding road with obstacles. A radio-controlled helicopter is fast but
you need a very skillful pilot.
Your vehicle could pick up no more than 12 packages (represented by ping-pong balls;
white is food, yellow is medicine) at a time from an automated warehouse, transport to
the disaster area (represented by a hula hoop), and unload them into the area. You need to
design a loading machine which has a capacity of 36 packages.
Hurricane Katrina Relief Team
Group:
Form a project team with 3-4 people. Elect a team leader who serves as the coordinator
between members and the instructor(s). The project will be evaluated as a group.
Design:
Utilize the knowledge learned in each phase of the course including conceptual design
using engineering sketches, detailed design using Pro/ Engineer, and cost
analysis/material list preparation using Excel to design a loading machine and a
transporter with the following goals:
a) Load as many containers (up to 12) to the vehicle from the warehouse.
b) Carry the containers to the relief area with the remotely controlled vehicle.
c) Unload the containers inside the circular area defined by a hula hoop with remote
control.
Testing:
Build and test the device. Adjust the loading machine so the packages can be loaded
quickly to the transporter. Tune the unloading device so the balls can be landed inside the
circle. Record the performance measured by the number of container pairs transported to
the destination and the time. Observe safety rules during fabrication and testing.
Report:
Prepare an engineering design report (one per group) with the following sections:
summary
description
analysis
drawings
material
assembly
performance
conclusion
references
Hand in the report during the last class period.
Presentation:
Make a 10 minute presentation using the real product, slides, video, and Powerpoint.
Contest:
Participate in a class/campus wide contest during the final exam time (TBD).
Project Timeline:
Week 2 (1)
Form project groups, elect team leaders, start information
search on the Web
Weeks 3-4 (2-3)
Brain Storming, preliminary design with sketches
Weeks 5-9 (4)
Detail Design with Pro/E, get material
Weeks 10-15 (5)
Build, test, and document
Week 16 (6)
Presentation, report submission, and competition
(*) summer class