I am currently on winter break from college so I thought I’d take some time to upload some photos of what I have been working on this past semester at school. For those who are not aware, I am currently a Junior majoring in Mechanical Engineering. I take quite a few classes at college that aren’t part of the Mechanical Engineering curriculum because I find them interesting. For example, I took an advanced 3D modeling class (i.e. the highest SolidWorks class my university offers) and a machine shop class. Below are some pictures of projects/homework from these classes.
You’ll see in the pictures below a lot of SolidWorks screenshots. Here is a brief description of what they are…
Basic Steel Parts:
The picture with 4 basic modeled parts was an assignment from the beginning of the semester. It was mainly an assignment to get everyone back in the groove of using SolidWorks after the summer break.
Reese Hitch:
This was a test of modeling multiple relatively simple items and then assembling them.
Screw in Hooks:
Again, this was just an assignment to get everyone use to using SolidWorks again. These were also reverse engineering. By that I mean we were not given a technical drawing of these parts. Measurements were taken using various tools. We mainly used calipers.
Hinge and Latches:
These were all part of the same reverse engineering assignment. Equipped with my calipers I gathered measurements and then modeled each part of each item. These are all SolidWorks assemblies.
Maglite:
This was another reverse engineering project which included gathering measurements, modeling items, and assembling.
Sterling Engine:
This was also another reverse engineering project. I ended up creating an animation of the sterling engine within SolidWorks.
Clamp:
The clamp was also a reverse engineering project. I posted a picture without the cover plate on the clamp so you can see the inner workings of the clamp.
Bike Phone Mount:
The yellow thing below was my idea for a simple phone mount for a bike. This assignment was a very specialized design project. The parameters were it had to fit somewhere on my professor’s bike so that it could be viewed while biking, it had to fit his Samsung Galaxy S5 with his specific case on it, and the goal was for the majority of it to be 3D printed.
My idea was pretty simple. My plan was for the phone mount to bolt to the piece of metal that goes from the horizontal handle bars to the vertical steering stem. I also designed it so that the phone mount could be tilted by means of a pivot point and a thumbscrew so that you could adjust the viewing angle.
Bocce Ball Box:
This was another assignment for the SolidWorks class. The assignment was to design a box to house a Bocce Ball set (a lawn game that consists of 8 ~5″ balls and one ~2″ ball). The box had to be practical, cost efficient, but most of all, easy to build. Not only did the assignment entail designing and modeling the box, I had to produce technical drawings for each part, a Bill of Materials with Lowes part numbers and prices, and written (and illustrated) instructions on exactly how to build the box. This project was cool because it involved a lot of ‘real world’ stuff like producing a B.O.M. and writing instructions.
Noise Maker:
As part of the SolidWorks class, we visited a local kindergarten class where each engineering student was paired up with a kindergarten to design them a toy to be 3D printed. After talking with Owen, the kindergarten student I was paired with, he decided he would enjoy it if I could make him a noise maker toy.
I modeled the toy after the noise makers I have seen percussionists use in orchestra. The toy ended up being a hollow handle (with Owen’s name cut in the side) with a long piece of plastic on the inside that got flicked by a gear that was attached to a crank handle. I designed this toy with a child in mind. And by that I mean I tried to make it as robust as possible knowing that it will be cranked fast. I made the shaft of the gear crank very large (.75″ in diameter) to make sure it would not snap under use. I wasn’t for sure exactly how this toy would turn out. I did not know if the 3D printed ABS would be flexible enough to be flicked without breaking. I was happy to see that the toy worked well when it was fully assembled and that it did in fact make noise.
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In the machine shop class I took I learned machining theory and practices.
The final project was a group project and the task was to follow technical drawings to machine parts to build a pneumatic engine. Me and a fellow engineering student used a lathe, a mill, drill press, etc. to machine the engine. We were very pleased when we hooked up the air supply to the engine and saw all of our hard work paying off with a nicely running engine.
