Manufacturing

Team Mentor Professor Mottley and Professor Phinney Abstract Wildfires burn 7 million acres of land in the US every year. We present a read-out integrated circuit (ROIC) designed to be…

Design an interchangeable, fixed offset, fixed gear-ratio eccentric tool spindle for gravity-loaded optical polishing procedures.

Gas-powered automobiles negatively impact the earth because of pollution that is exhausted from their engines. This project implements a cheap, efficient, and electric-powered cart design to raise awareness on the power of efficient electric vehicles. 

Make a low cost system to measure mini-scale object displacement.

Retrofitting a forklift with an open-source autonomous-warehousing system.

Proposed by SPX Flow, the goal of this project is to characterize the oxygen transfer rate (OTR) within inert fluids of various viscosities.
Paul Eisold, Kamal Raji, Rony Waheibi, Collins Yawe

This Xerox-sponsored project aims to completely separate high viscosity PDMS and heptane via a solvent evaporation process followed by supercritical carbon dioxide extraction.
Alissa DeRubertis, Colin Ikei, Bryan Schellberg, Mark Volkin

This project aims to characterize a wastewater stream in addition to addressing biochemical oxygen demand in cooperation with LiDestri.
Katerina Connor, Junseok Jeon, Connor Pope, Brian Yegela

This project was to design an accelerated testing system for Harbec, Inc to evaluate gaskets in the India Mark II hand pump for installation by the Ugandan Water Project.

Dan Allara, Oion Akif, Paul Irving, Tessa Ludwick

In this project, a lab-scale chromatography process was developed to purify crude LUV dye. Upon scale up at Eastman Kodak Company, the chromatography process would be able to purify 2 kg/day.
Quinton Dang, Waad Magram, Zhiwei Wang

This project aims to design and build a multi-channel reverse water gas shift reactor system that allows for exploration of heterogeneous catalysis.
Ahmad El Gazzar, Thien Hung Nguyen, Clive Onyango, Emilio Vega-Ramos

Tow Tank devices are used in testing boat and aerodynamic models for things like aerodynamic drag and lift. These devices typically cost around $20,000 which is the reason not every school has access to such a device. Here in the University of Rochester, we don’t have our own tow tank device, but we do have a swimming pool, and a passion for solving problems. In this post, we are showcasing our prototype for a tow tank that can be assembled and used in the gym swimming pool. The cost of the prototype and the completed final device is less than $1000!

L3Harris Technologies is an American defense company that builds a variety of mechanical, optical, and electrical systems. The Rochester division designs and builds systems for space applications. Optical space telescopes are widely used in both Earth and astrophysical observations and play a major role in scientific and national security. For optical telescopes to function properly and take clear images, their optics must be precisely aligned to focus light. However, during the launch of the telescope, the relative positions of these optics can change. The goal of the project is to build a mechanism to finely adjust the position of these optics to enhance resolution and accuracy of the telescope images. This improved image quality has significant implications for both terrestrial and space observations with applications to scientific research and national security.

Our team, along with Drill Powered Carts A have built a fully functioning, energy-efficient, and sustainable vehicle, which will be powered by a single electric power drill. By doing this, each team hopes to not only show people that electric-powered transportation is possible, reliable, and easy but, whose cart is the best. The two teams will face off in an endurance race to see which cart can make the most laps around a race track at the University of Rochester River Campus. This will show which team has the most optimized mechanical design.

Several optomechanical applications have a need for a 360° kinematic mounting system capable of withstanding thermal loading due to heat generation from electronic devices. It is advantageous for optical systems to have a repeatable and controlled, known distance between devices such as optics, sensors, light sources, mirrors or assorted non-optical sensors. The team was able to design a thermally stable spaceframe solution, capable of reducing movement of any assembled components to minimal displacements on the order of microns.

Our senior design project is implementing an AI chess board. It uses Python and the popular chess engine Stockfish on a Raspberry Pi to show the user with LEDs where the computer would like to make its move. Our project was a success and could be used as a beginning step to make a more complex and intuitive chess board that plays chess against a user.

The Rossell Hope Robbins Library is underutilized by many students on campus due to the lack of awareness of the library and its resources. To promote awareness for the library, this project contains designs for a “life-size” portable chess set with medieval themes.

Various post-operative complications may lead cardiac surgeons to opt for delayed sternal closure following open heart surgeries. Patients’ sterna are left open and they are cared for in the intensive care unit for 1-7 days. In the ICU, bedridden patients are turned to prevent pressure ulcers and for linen changes. During these turns, the sternal halves rotate and twist, potentially leading to injury or death. Our device stabilizes the sternal halves during transport and turning, greatly increasing patient safety.

Our project focuses on solving the need to decrease the amount of muscle obstruction during minimally invasive lumbar surgeries in order to increase the surgeon’s visualization of the surgical field. We developed a medical device that decreases the muscle obstruction by expanding an inflatable at the base of a cylindrical port. The product was tested in a PVA mixture that resembles similar material characteristics as muscle which proved the plausibility and efficacy of the concept.

Minimize nickel contamination of cleaning tanks in Orafol Precision Technology’s electroforming process.

A renewed focus on environmental concerns means that fuel efficiency and emissions of engines are of significant importance. A current design for a mixing nozzle exists, but the fuel residence could be higher and the pressure drop could be lower. A longer fuel residence time ensures smooth distribution of fuel and a more efficient burn. A lower pressure drop means that less energy is lost by the motion of the fluid through the mixer.

Helmets in the NFL are not effective enough to safeguard the health of the players. Players sustain concussions which can not only bench them, but leave life-long brain damage from the accelerations experienced during impact. As part of the project to improve the helmet, simulations were used to test material properties of different components of football helmets, such as hard foams, soft foams, and the shell. Data from the simulations were analyzed with performance metrics provided by the NFL.

Optimize creation of composites combining under-utilized hemp fabrics with epoxy.

Automation of feedstock delivery for creation of biochar, a product of biomass pyrolysis, thermal decomposition in the absence of oxygen.

Ten-μ solutions plans to introduce time and cost savings to the operating room (OR) through application-specific single-use instrumentation. Our instrument will allow surgeons to position and tension vessel loops at their discretion.

Creation of atmospherically-controlled chamber for UV degradation testing of novel OLED materials for Molecular Glasses, Inc.

Characterize LiDestri Food and Drink portfolio of spaghetti sauces to optimize manufacturing process.

The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) at the University of Rochester is in need of a portable and educational display that showcases the mission and capabilities of the facility. The project is a representative and visually captivating model that demonstrates the laser amplification process of Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA). This technique was invented by the LLE and revolutionized the industry.

Identify inexpensive process for in-house purification of motion picture film dye for Kodak.

The project goal was to create methods to control the brakes, steering angle, and accelerator position of a Baja SAE off-road vehicle in a manner that allows the remote driving of the car. The team has created detailed models, simulations, and system documentation to ensure a strong foundation for the continuation of the project in the coming year. This project hopes to create new opportunities for future undergraduates to work on problems related to autonomous vehicles.

Analysis of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) chemical solutions’ inkjet printability through range of solution concentrations.

We are tasked by Rochester Rehab to create a device that increases the efficiency of packaging an underwater camera into a foil bag, primarily by reducing friction on the camera. By doing so, more cameras will be packaged per hour and the wage of the workers who are employed in the process will increase.

Our project is to design a device that can quantitatively measure the securement of a tracheostomy, therefore, prevent postoperative complications and provide hospital staff with more information for further research. Because of the COVID-19 situation, we have changed our project from designing an actual prototype to focusing more on theoretical mechanisms so that it will be able to be manufactured in the future.

Controlled, rapid-cooling chamber for initiated chemical vapor deposition of thin film polymers.

For spinal surgeons who face difficulty visualizing the nerve root during spinal decompressions, the Meramec suction/elevator is a surgical instrument that combines multiple instrument functions to free surgeons’ hands and increase OR efficiency. It combines the functionality and familiarity of existing suction tips and manual elevators with end effector geometry specific to the lumbar nerve roots, reducing the need to switch instruments. This improves OR workflow and increases patient safety.

The Human Powered Vehicle Challenge (HPVC) is a competition that is part of the annual American Society of Mechanical Engineer’s (ASME) E-fest. This competition requires that teams from various universities design a vehicle for safe, reliable, and efficient human powered transportation. The teams come together and race their vehicles in an endurance race and a drag race, as well as present their design to the HPVC judges.

Enable self-sustaining biochar production by reclamation of process by-products.