MAE 3291: JUNIOR DESIGN
Overview and Discussion of Projects
January 28, 2008
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department
Florida Institute of Technology
D. R. Kirk
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT #1, DUE: 1/23/08
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What are you looking forward to most about senior design?
What are your biggest concerns or worries about senior design?
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What has impressed/not impressed you about past senior design projects at FIT?
What has impressed/not impressed you about senior design projects at other universities?
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What type of project are you interested in working on?
– Applied vs. purely scientific?
– Rocket, airplane, land-based vehicle, UAV, engine, etc?
– Large team (over 10) vs. small (less than 5)
– Multi-disciplinary vs. aerospace focused?
– Sponsored vs. un-sponsored
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Come up with 3 good ideas for potential projects
– What is the motivation for this project?
– What are the project objectives?
– What is the 3 semester approach that would have to be undertaken to make the project a success?
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We will review these ideas and others in Lecture on Monday, January 28, 2008
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QUESTION 1
What are you looking forward to most about senior design?
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Apply what was learned in 3 years of undergrad
“The chance to test skills I’ve developed over the last $90,000”
Gain practical experience
Do something that has never been done before
Designing, Manufacturing, and Building
Add content to resume
• “So I hope that my senior design project will help me re-realize that this is what I
love, and there is a reason as to why I let myself suffer through thermodynamics,
fluid mechanics, structures, and aerodynamics”
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QUESTION 2
What are your biggest concerns about senior design?
• Having enough time for senior design / balancing work load with other classes
• Team dynamics
– Incompetent team members
– Team members not willing to work hard
– Disagreements between team members
– Getting stuck on a team with project or people I don’t like
• Funding
• Getting bogged down with paperwork
• Not completing the project
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QUESTION 2
• “Picking the right project. If its too hard there’s no payoff, and if its too simple
then there’s no satisfaction.”
– We need to mutually come up with ways to balance this
• “I’m concerned that I’ll make an ass out of myself. That after all is said and done,
someone will see all the hard work and all the models and prototypes I’ve created
and say, ‘Weren’t you supposed to use this equation?’”
– Expect to make an ass out of yourself many times in life…
– There is being an ass
• I did this in a way that was more complicated than necessary…
• Ah, I should have used a compressible form of that equation …
– And then there is being a dumb ass
• I didn’t do any calculations at all, because the design looked good…
• What is compressibility?
– And then there is being a G@D D@#M jack ass
• What? I didn’t know that I had to participate in senior design.
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“NOT COMPLETING THE PROJECT”
• Goals:
– Design and build a remote control airplane to lift as heavy a load as possible
– Compete in the SAE Heavy Lift Cargo Plane Competition
• Scenario 1:
– Team did not finish building the airplane
– Designed, built, and tested an excellent airfoil and wing configuration
– Did not build a fuselage
– Professional and complete design report
– GRADE = ?
• Scenario 2:
– Team did no research on airfoils, wings, or airplane performance
– Scrapped together a plane that flies
– Lifts virtually no extra weight and finishes last at competition
– GRADE = ?
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QUESTION 3
What has impressed you about past senior design projects
• Projects that were completed and worked
– JAMSTAR flight to over 80,000 ft at over Mach 2
• Projects that were presented well and had visibility
• Projects that had substance – not just projects that looked cool
• Projects that had innovation
• “… the most successful projects (or at least the ones that generate the most press)
seem to be the longer term ones with reasonable goals and strong leadership from
the professors and other staff”
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QUESTION 4
What has not been impressive about past senior design projects
• Half-completed projects
• Repetitive projects
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COMPLETE LIST OF PROJECT IDEAS
PROJECT IDEAS
• Sponsored Design Contest Topics and/or Competition
– Design, Build, Fly (AIAA and Cessna)
– The Great Moonbuggy Race
– SAE Cargo Plane
– Human Powered Helicopter (or other craft)
– DARPA Challenge
• X-Prize
– Overall strategy
– Individual components
• Low-Gravity Research
– Microgravity University
– Slosh Dynamics (with NASA KSC)
– Long term storage of LOX
– Magnetic Bearing in Low-Gravity
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PROJECT IDEAS
• Aircraft Design
– UAV
– VTOL
– VTOL with channel wings
– Solar Powered Plane (Endurance Record)
– Garage kept helicopter
– Morphing Wing Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
– Supersonic model airplane
– Aircraft for Martian atmosphere
– Micro-sized Flyer
– Unmanned Aerial Submersible
– Airplane to land on snow and water
– Reduced noise airplane
– Electric powered, highly portable airplane
– Design of a light business jet
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PROJECT IDEAS
• Other Vehicles
– Airfoil car
– Aerodynamics for the formula car
– Hydrofoil model boat
– Hovering vehicles using magnets
– Personal hovercraft
– Low drag motorcycle
– Underwater projectiles
– Solar powered vehicle
– Solar powered race car
– Design a rocket that can go to Mars (with humans)
– Ground effect vehicle
– Car that has the ability to drive upside down
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PROJECT IDEAS
• Propulsion System Design
– Pulsejet
– Pulsejet/turbojet hybrid
– Turbofan engine for UAV (with Florida Turbine Technologies)
– Propulsion for extraterrestrial atmospheres
– Nuclear combustion engine
– Survey of alternative propulsion projects
– Ramjet/Scramjet engine
– Gather new data for solid, hybrid, and liquid rockets
– Nuclear Fusion Reactor with Possible Application to Spacecraft
– Space harmonics to induce rotational movement
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PROJECT IDEAS
• High-Powered Rocket Project
– Eco rocket to collect pollution data
– Sounding rocket
– Aerospike rocket motor and launch
– Mono-propellant or hybrid
– Upgrading and Utilizing 6-DOF Rocket Motor Thrust Stand
• Extending stand for hybrid and liquid use
• In conjunction with Space Florida
– New shapes for solid rocket boosters
• Experimental Facilities
– Supersonic wind tunnel
– New shock tube / detonation tube facility
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MORE IDEAS
• Remote controlled robotic arms attached to helicopters
• Motorized magnetic rollerblades
• Antenna Pointer System for an aircraft
• Robot that can fix parts and satellites
• Participate in the Constellation project with NASA
• Fully Functioning Transformer
• Nuclear Fusion Reactor with Possible Application to Spacecraft
• Robotic arms for spacecraft
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MORE IDEAS
• Design a space station
• Design a moon base
• Design a rocket that can go to Mars (with humans)
• Design a mini Moon orbiting around the Earth
• Experiments with new composite airfoil materials
• FUNSAT type spacecraft
• Carbon nanotube production facility for FIT
• Create a more cost effective passenger airline fuselage
• Fusion cutter
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MORE IDEAS
• Space elevator
• Super Cavitations Torpedoes
• Magnetic bearings
• Gas purging systems
• A system to remove space trash
• Rail gun
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INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT #2, DUE: 2/1/08
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Thinking about the big picture for now, what are your top 3 project choices?
NOTE: If you have a team together and are sure of what you want to do,
then just list the project and the team members
– For example:
1. GLXP
2. Low-gravity studies (either experiments or devices)
3. High-powered rocket project
– What is your (or your team’s) biggest concern with each?
– Worst Case Scenario: What can your team do for $1,000?
GOAL: Be on a team by February 18, 2008
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What is a strategy for dealing with ‘lazy’ team members?
– Example: Individual Assignment #1: 12/65 not submitted (82% A, 18% F)
What is a strategy for dealing with ‘incompetent’ team members?
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How should the overall grading for the team be done?
How should individual grading be done?
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