Below is a list of some senior project ideas for 2013-2014.

Although these projects have

been proposed by multiple people, the final project advisor may be different and will
depend on the different student groups, and faculty responsibility. You are welcome to
contact the faculty proposing the project for more details.
Robert Marks
- Omoverhi, which means lucky baby in a native Nigerian language, is a project aimed
at developing a low-cost and off-grid incubator for premature infants in underdeveloped
parts of the world. The 2012-2013 team has redesigned the incubator, focusing mainly on
cost and materials accessibility issues; however, development of an off-grid power source
and energy storage remains a challenge. Prior teams stored energy in the form of latent
heat associated with the melting transformation in a parafin wax. However, when
consuming this energy, the wax re-solidifies, producing a barrier to heat transport (no
convection in solids) into the water used as the incubators heat source.
Ideas to circumvent these issues have included geometrically
constraining the wax so that many channels of water may flow by the
wax.
- Centrifuge for the Materials Lab
This project would be suitable for a group of seniors with
expertise
in the following areas: (1) dynamics/vibrations, (2)
controls, possibly with the assistance of an ELEN, (3)
continuum mechanics/mechanical design FEM, and (4)
to a lesser extend fluid dynamics/sedimentation.
The idea is to construct something comparable to a commercially
available centrifuge having capacity for 2 L of a liquid suspension and
capable of reaching rotational speeds up to 15,000 rpm (25,000XG).
The model I used in grad school only reached 6,000 rpm, and we
actually only ran it at about 1,000 rpm, so if they were able to achieve
1,000 rpm, I would consider it a success.
Some individual components could be purchased, such as the
centrifuge tubes and holders, but I would expect the rotating
arms/shaft to be designed, machined, and assembled by the students.
External housing and user interface would also need to be
designed/manufactured by the students, although items such as
individual display components could be purchased. Control system
need not consist of more than a speed control and timer.
I could serve as the adviser to the team and would also serve as the
primary customer for the project and more generally represent
university faculty from the perspective(s) of laboratory research
interests and/or instructional laboratory exercises. The unit shown

above retails for about $4,400 (Thermo Scientific Sorvall ST16), so I

anticipate students should be able
to achieve a working product with
about $5,000. A useable product
may require two years, with the first
year being primarily focused on
design and analysis.
- Recycling and Purification of Sn-Bi
Alloys
This project would be suitable for a
group of students interested in
materials and manufacturing
processes. Perhaps it would be best
reserved for those interested in pursuing graduate work in materials
and with a decent understanding of phase diagrams and phase
separation in two-component systems.
The idea here is to develop a process that involves melting and resolidifying Sn-Bi alloys to produce progressively purer stock of the
elemental constituents. A key challenge will likely be separating the
liquid from the solid without the entire alloy re-solidifying into a single
ingot. The actual mechanical workings of the device(s) used to achieve
this may be fairly rudimentary (this would not resemble a commercially
available product), and I suspect any mechanical engineer could
develop them; hence my emphasis on an understanding of alloy phase
equilibria. I envision the final device achieving something similar to
zone refining, although that process is typically reserved for materials
that are already fairly pure.
Again, I could serve as the adviser and customer. The idea is motivated
to minimize Sn and Bi consumption in one of the MECH 15 lab
experiments. I think this would make an interesting project/device.
Future iterations of the project might involve processing in an inert gas
or vacuum environment to avoid oxidation of the metals. Furthermore,
something akin to zone refining may be difficult to achieve since one
would likely end up with a significant portion of the material being at
the eutectic composition, which is difficult to phase separate. It may be
preferred to preferentially oxidize one of the metals using a controlled
pO2 environment. The oxide could then be separated and reduced in a
low pO2 environment.
- Rotary Evaporator for the Materials Lab

This is something that could be used in a process subsequent to

centrifuging, and although commercially available models
($12k) are more costly than the centrifuge, I believe this requires
somewhat less specialization on the part of the students than Idea #1.
Students interested in thermodynamics, heat transport, and fluid
dynamics would be suitable for this project. Control systems including
rotational speed (much lower speeds in this instance) and a separate
heating unit (<100C) for a water bath are necessary. The control
system does not require a timer in this case, as a simple on off switch
would suffice, and rotational speeds would be 100 rpm max (<50 rpm
is very realistic).
The challenge here is the glassware. Im not sure what capabilities we
have for manufacturing such parts, so this one might be a no go, but I
thought Id include because it nicely compliments Idea #1. It may be
possible to construct something with a suitable transparent plastic
(needs to withstand 100C). Not ideal, but would make for an
interesting project if they got something to work.
Mohammad Ayoubi
- An Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV) for Law Enforcement Officers
The objective of this project is to design, simulate, and implement a control algorithm
which guide an existing UAV through some user-defined waypoints and stream live
videos or take pictures for law enforcement officers. This is the continuation of this year
Quad-rotor helicopter project.
- Fuzzy-Logic Based Sprinkle System
The current commercial sprinkle systems work based on the
system setting. They are open loop. i.e. they don't work
based on any feedback. If the weather condition changes, a
human should interfere and change the settings manually.
The objective of this project is to measure the soil moisture
and use online weather forecast, and some knowledge-based
rules to make decision about the time and duration of
watering of a residential typical-size landscape.
- Designing, building, simulating, and implementing a
control system interface for the existing shaker table. This
shaker will be used for studying Earthquake effects on the
structures in the Civil engineering department.

- Designing, building, simulating, and implementing a small Unmanned Aerial

Vehicle(UAV) for high school students. The final product should be inexpensive and easy
to assemble and fly.
MA & Drazen Fabris
- Designing, building, simulating, and implementing a control system interface for a
portable rotary inverted-pendulum [or other design, or multi-degree of freedom
pendulum]. This educational module will be used in classroom to demonstrate the
performance of different control systems.
Chris Kitts
- Deep Sea Characterization Instrument. Through a new NSF funded program with Univ
of Alaska Fairbanks and a number of other industrial and academic partners, we will be
developing a novel instrument to characterize chemical and microbial life in the basaltic
crust of the Earth, hundreds to thousands of meters underwater. Elements of this project
include truss design, control of an undersea winch, development of a distributed
instrumentation system, an ROV-based maneuvering and data pass-through system,
systems engineering, and operational development.
- Small Spacecraft Development and Launch Preparation. Building upon the work of this
year's small satellite project team, next year's team will integrate a specific payload into
the vehicle, explore the use of advanced communications and mechanisms, and work
with collaborators from NASA Ames in order to deliverable a functional satellite system.
- NASA Satellite Operations. For nearly a decade, SCU has provided mission control
services for a series of NASA small satellites. During the upcoming year, 10 new
satellites are planned to be launched, and all will be operated by SCU. Project
opportunities exist for the development of new satellite tracking systems, softwaredefined radio systems, distributed command and telemetry processing software, and
physics-based functional modeling and analysis tools.
- Marine robotic control systems. Students interested combining a design project with
undergraduate-level research in control systems can join one of our marine robotic
systems teams, all of which continue to design/extend existing robots, which include
undersea robots, automated boats, and a fleet of robotic kayaks. These systems perform
real-world missions, and they are being specifically used to demonstrate new control
system architectures, such as controlling robots to move in formations and to
collaboratively perform advanced applications.
-We're interested in a low-cost network of marine drifters - little sampling systems that
would float with the current and possibly dive periodically to do vertical samples of the
water column.... with the individual drifters possibly interacting with each other. We may

do this with a few KEEN university partners as well. Individual teams would work to
implement their best solution but would also have to work together to determine internode communication protocols, etc. I would put up some small amount of money and a
standard set of parts to give to each team. Functional demos would be required next
April, and a mission using successful designs would be conducted in May or June.
Terry Shoup
- ASME Human Powered Vehicle Challenge
ASME's international Human Powered Vehicle Challenge (HPVC) provides an
opportunity for students to demonstrate the application of sound engineering design
principles in the development of sustainable and practical transportation alternatives.In
the HPVC, students work in teams to design and build efficient, highly engineered
vehicles for everyday usefrom commuting to work, to carrying goods to market.
Monem Beitelmal (& Drazen Fabris)
- Solar water purification
The Solar Water Purification System utilizes the thermal energy from the sun, as well as
the generated electricity from a photovoltaic solar plate to purify brackish water into
clean, drinkable water. This purpose of this project is to supply clean water using
renewable energy. The major parts of the system involve a boiler, a solar collector, and a
condenser. Prior research used EES to code the entire process of the overall system. This
would allow us to change a single parameter, such as the flow rate of the HTF duratherm,
and observe how that would affect the output of water in the condenser or perhaps the
required heat to achieve a desired output. This project would be best for groups
interested in heat transfer design and thermal modeling and construction of a system.