5. Design Problem

Interested Design Problems

The following is a list of personal design problems that I am interested:

1. House Hold Waste Sorting machine & network: I am interested in technology that will benefit the environment. The waste sorting machine would help the recycling process occurred every household. I always adore the daily recycling process in Japan, Switzerland and other European countries, because their process is more efficient and well-known to general public then that in United States. In US, the recycling process in the community is way to simple, in which we normally put anything we think that is recyclable in the green garbage bin and other trash in the blue garbage bin. The pickup is normally once per week. Whereas in Japan, the garbage must be separated completely from each other: burnable, non-burnable and recyclables [Reference]. Burnables includes regular household trash, such as paper, clothes, wood. Non-burnables includes metal, glass, Styrofoams and the like. Recyclables include cans and bottles. The trash are put in clear or semi-transparent bag and left in trash pickup points available on every block. It would be hard for US residents to change to the standard that Japanese community have. Hence, I am thinking about designing a waste sorting machine in aiding the recycling process: The machine is compact and can be installed in every household and it automatically separate the trash into three categories: burnables, non-burnables and recyclables.
2. Multi-pigment Drawing tool: I enjoy drawing and sometimes bother by the fact that you will need a large toolbox to store large amount of pen or pencils that can draw different pigments. Especially when you want to draw as anywhere you go, carrying a large box around is rather cumbersome. Hence, I want to design a single specially-engineered pen that can present texture of different pigments. The pen will have several knob that can be used to adjust the wavelength, light refection, transmittance or absorbency, which is associated with the pigment properties. The goal is to have a pen, such that you can change the texture and color of the material drawn out of the pen via several knob turning!
3. Integrated Robotic leg and wheel chair: I am very interested in the integration of engineering and biological science in developing products that aid everyday life. I want to design robotic legs that not only help disabled to walk and run, but also can reconfigured into comfortable wheel chair when the user is tired. In the domain of aiding users to walk, the robot shall be ease the process of walking by providing mechanisms to reduce required force against inertia and gravity. The

Problems to be improved 

The following is a list of problems that I think can be improved or created primarily for others. 

1. Diagnostic and Surgical Medical Devices: It is excited to see the development of surgical medical technology with implementation of intelligent devices that are capable of providing multiple functions. Diagnosis of a patient's condition is critical, since it utterly affects the type of treatment that he or she may received. A slight mistake made in judgment would danger a patient's life and potentially cause death. Small robotics devices are looking forward to be developed in aiding the diagnostic process, such that it can monitor the patient's physiological signals by going through a patient's bloodstreams. In terms of surgical medical devices, sophisticated robotics hand offer refined control over the procedure and aid the surgeons during surgeries. Either type of medical device advances would benefit everyone in the society.
2. Waste Converter: Human population projects to increases exponentially, and sooner or later, the planet would run out of its natural resources. We need to find a way to obtain energy. Beside the well-known renewable energy such as solar, wind, tidal and geo-energy, is it possible to utilize fecal waste to produce energy? Combining chemistry, biology and engineering, energy in waste is extracted and is used to pay for the process. It would be a self-sustaining process, as long as human input waste, and it will eliminate the use of expensive water pipes, waste storage and other mediums that we use energy to get the waste out. It can also solves the sanitation problem in developing countries where they don't have money to build sophisticated sewage system and toilets.
3. Wind Turbine Aerodynamic Noise Issue: Wind turbine generates clean and renewable energy and has relatively small environmental impact compared to other plants powered by fossil fuels. However, the aerodynamic noise produced by the rotor blades during operations has become a huge barrier to wind energy development. Development in noise reduction and noise control technology is important to increase the amount of land available for further wind projects. To date, there have been plenty of different noise control concepts, noise reduction studies and noise analyses for wind turbines, especially for the horizontal axis wind turbine. In solving the noise issue, residents would be more open toward wind turbine farm near the neighborhood and it would potentially aid in advances in wind turbine technology.

My Designs

In the following, a list of products, devices, processes and other things that I have designed are presented:

1- Mechanical Desk lamp (MAE 377 Project)

Many common lamps have fixed body and cannot rotate freely. It would cumbersome to move the whole lamp for matching the light to desired location. The product being proposed solves the problem because of its ability to pivot around the base and to stretch or extend its arm for reaching preferred location of light. The product is very useful to customers who are used to desk work and especially to those who tends to stay up late for work.  

This product is a desk lamp with pivotable arms existing in the market. The arms can be used to adjust the height of the lamp. The tensions in the extension springs would push the arm further back with an increasing angle with respect to its corresponding plane. The connective pin allows the knob and the shades to freely rotate up and down. The whole body of the lamp is able to revolve around the base.

I personally decided the geometry, material selection, parts and aesthetic for this product. The product is shown in the following engineering drawing with bill of material.

Figure 1: Mechanical Desk lamp Assembly Drawing with BOM

2 - Program: Wind turbine Tower Optimization

In my MAE 510 Wing Turbine modeling class, me and my group has written a program in Matlab to design the tower for a 100 KW fixed-speed, stall-regulated, wind turbine system.  The design is to be optimized with respect to material use, energy production, tower structural requirement and blade configuration, given wind profile. The flow chart below clearly present the flow of our program for optimization. 

Figure 2: Wind Turbine Tower Optimization Process Flowchart 

Using the program, our group is able to obtain a set of tower configuration that satisfy all the given constraints and objectives. The best configuration can be chosen depends on the need for lower cost or higher dynamic stability.