Fall 2017 Senior Design Expo
The William States Lee College of Engineering held its fall semester Senior Design Expo on Dec. 8, 2017. There were 27 teams presenting their completed two-semester projects, 17 of them industry sponsored and 10 college departmental sponsored. There were 61 teams presenting their first-semester design-concept posters, 43 of them industry sponsored and 18 of them departmental sponsored.
The three completed projects judged to be the best were:
First Place – Dishwasher Automatic Wash System
Sponsor – Sealed Air
Students – Omar Alomary, Jaden Barney, Crystal Conde, Hunter Damewood, Drew Long and Elizabeth Spaulding
Mentors – Dr. Thomas Koch and Dr. Yamilka Baez-Rivera
Description – Diversey Care is a division of Sealed Air that provides solutions for cleaning, including a product line that involves the dispensing of soaps and chemicals for industrial dishwashers. Currently there is a water temperature/conductivity probe in some washer designs. The probe is subject to scaling and provides only a manual indication of temperature and conductivity with the dishwasher open. The senior design project was to design a temperature/conductivity probe that was less prone to scaling and would wirelessly communicate with the dispensing system.
Second Place – Waste Reduction
Sponsor – Legrand
Students – Osama Algaed, Maged Alqaed, Paul Edwards, Caleb Harvey, Harrison Lockard and Matthew Teague
Mentor – Dr. Thomas Koch
Description – Legrand extrudes PVC plastic raceway used to route and hide wires for speakers and corded electrical devices. The raceway mounts to walls and baseboards using double sided tape and screws. When there is a defect on the surface finish of the raceway, the product must be scraped due the presence of the tape. Currently this product is thrown away, costing Legrand money and also hindering the company from meeting its environmental goal of zero landfill waste by 2022. The senior design project was to develop a cost-effective method to remove the tape from the raceway, allowing Legrand to regrind the pvc raceway for reuse in the process or in worst case, send it to a recycler.
Third Place – Sales Display to Demonstrate Improved Performance of Gas-Filled Dampers
Sponsor – Stabilus
Students – Yousef Alfadhi, Steven Craft, Wesley Floyd, Connor Greene and Hunter Mitchell
Mentor – Dr. Tony Schmitz
Description – The Stabilus project required the design and building of a portable sales display to demonstrate improved performance of gas-filled dampers verses traditional mechanical spring dsmpers. The benefit of the gas-filled dampers are in addition to adding torsion to the idle pulley it adds damping and reduces the vibration in the system resulting in longer belt life and better performance. The demo had to be based on the ZTR mower deck.
Providing students with an innovative, hands-on learning experience, the Senior Design Program at UNC Charlotte is educating engineering students, supporting industry partners and benefiting the State of North Carolina. The program teaches students how to apply their years of math, science, and engineering knowledge to solve the unique problems presented by many progressive North Carolina companies. The William States Lee College of Engineering encourages multi-disciplinary projects that involve engineering and technology solutions in the disciplines of mechanical, electrical, computer, systems, environmental and civil engineering.