EE 491 - Senior Design SYS 491 - Senior Design ME 492 - Senior Mechanical Engineering Design Project Winter 2015

January 6, 2015

Winter 2015 Design Project Description:

For the Winter 2015 semester, we will develop designs for Leader Dogs for the Blind, a world-renowned organization dedicated to "empowering people who are blind, visually impaired or Deaf-Blind with lifelong skills for independent travel through quality Leader Dogs, highly effective client instruction and innovative services".

For the Leader Dogs for the Blind (LDB) projects, the following general procedure will replace the design/build/competition procedure described in the syllabus:

• Project teams will design, simulate and prototype a scaled version of their concept
• Team presentations will bring together the varying designs and one design that incorporates the best features and methods of them all will be developed further and constructed
• Teams (which may be reconfigured after the presentations) will build and assess the performance of the constructed design

Leader Dogs for the Blind - Operating Room / X-ray Table

The photos above show the current device used to transport and position dogs for surgery and x-ray procedures. The anesthetized dog is placed spine-down onto the vinyl sling in the removable box, and its hind legs are positioned through the notches at the end of the box and secured. The entire cart is rolled into the OR for surgery. The box can be lifted off the cart and placed directly on the x-ray table. The following improvements are needed:

• The height of the cart must adjust 34"-42" from the floor to the bottom of the vinyl sling, no current adjustment
• The head of the cart/box must tilt upwards to a maximum of 30°, currently it is simply propped up
• The box must be heated to a range of 95°-107°, not currently heated. The heating system may be separate and employed only in the OR.
• The box must be made of a material that can be cleaned and sterilized easily, currently a rough-textured plastic, probably HDPE
• Optional - adjust the depth of the sling. Small dogs need to be raised for surgery, lowered closer to the table for x-rays.
• The current box is 60" long, 15" wide and 8" high.

Leader Dogs for the Blind - Transport lift/cart

The photo above shows the current transport cart. It is basically a common hydraulic lift industrial parts cart with a dog bed attached. Large dogs seen by the LDB are 100-lb, more typical are dogs in the range from 60 to 75-lb. The following improvements are required:

• The height of the cart must adjust from 36" (height of procedure table) to 6" (height of bed in cage) from the floor. The cart may tilt to help achieve the low end of the range
• The current cart is 39"x25". The cart may be no more than 20" wide to easily fit through doors, easily maneuvered, and the surface should be about 60" long
• The cart should have a railing (lip, fence) around the perimeter to prevent the dog from rolling off, and this railing should fold to facilitate loading and unloading the dogs
• Since this cart is a transport unit for patients, raising and lowering must be extraordinarily smooth, with no jerking

Leader Dogs for the Blind - Neonatal Transport Unit

Puppies less than 5 lb, and especially puppies born via Caesarian section, cannot adequately control their body temperature in the cold, making transport very risky in inclement weather. For socialization reasons, puppies need to be in physical contact with their litter mates, and should not be separated for long periods of time. Litters sponsored by the LDB are whelped at residential homes and periodically need to be transported to the LDB veterinary facilities.

There is a need for a litter transport unit. This unit must control the environment within the unit within 5° for an entire litter (1-7 puppies) during a 60-90 minute automotive transport. Fresh air flow in the unit must be maintained. The entire unit must be portable by two people, easily moved through residential doorways, be "laundry basket size," no more than 25" wide and 50-lb, including the puppies.

Industrial parts sorting device

Sorting small parts is a common and costly task that manufacturing facilities are faced with. In this project, we will build small devices to sort small parts

The six (6) specific parts we will sort in this project are:

• 4-mm socket head cap screws, 50-mm long
• 4-mm hex nuts
• 10-mm socket head cap screws, 25-mm long
• 10-mm hex nuts
• Both the plastic anchors and the #10 sheet metal screw components of the Triple Grip wall anchors available at Menards

Competition: On Thursday April 21, 2015 (the study day) a competition will be held for all of the parts-sorting design groups, beginning at 10 am, in 178 EC. Each team will attempt to sort a bucket of parts, consisting of 20-30 pieces of each of the six different parts, in the shortest time. Incorrect sorts will incur a 5 second penalty. The score for each run will be the time, including penalties, multiplied by the cost of the device.

Military fastener testing

We anticipate an opportunity to test a new type of fastener for military applications. This test will take no more than 2 weeks and involve no more than 3 students. When the fasteners become available, the selected students will arrange to test them at the FAJRI facilities in Dodge Hall, write a report of their findings and present the results to the fastener company and military contractors. Due to the nature of this project, this opportunity is only available to US citizens.