2008 Undergraduate Research Day
April 26, 2008

Senior Design News
9th Annual Wyoming Undergraduate Research Day

Mechanical Engineering Presentation Schedule <PDF>
All presentation in Classroom Building 219

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Altitude Engineering - Power Nail Pulller Attachment for a Hammer Drill
Students: Brady Adams (Longmont, CO), Zachary Frame ( Rock Springs, WY), Jerry Hahn (Yuma, CO), and Robert Marion (Colorado Springs, CO) Advisor: Dr. Dennis Coon In September 2007 Frontier Barnwood of Laramie, Wyoming, contracted Altitude Engineering to design and fabricate a power nail remover.   A prior version of a power nail puller was designed and fabricated by Simple Solutions Engineering (SSE) during the fall of 2006 and the spring of 2007.  However, issues remained to be addressed with the SSE design.  These issues included binding and manual manipulation of the extraction teeth during an extraction cycle, over torque on the power screw, and material failures on a guide rod.  Altitude Engineering inherited specific design specifications from the SSE project:  nails to be removed range from 8d to 60d, the cycle time should be 15 seconds or less to extract a nail, the target weight is 10 pounds or less including the hammer drill, and an extraction should cause minimal damage to the wood.   In addition the sponsor wished to use the DeWalt hammer drill purchased for the SSE project. The Altitude Engineering retained the basic power screw design of the SSE project but designed a significantly smaller support frame and a radically different pulling head.  The Altitude Engineering pulling head teeth drill into the wood while at the same time close around the nail head.  The power nail puller attachment was fabricated in the University of Wyoming College of Engineering Machine Shop and compliance tested in the Senior Design Assembly and Testing Laboratory.  The redesigned power nail puller attachment along with the hammer drill The full assembly of the power nail puller attachment and hammer drill will be delivered to Frontier Barnwood in early May of 2008.
DRAG Engineering - Design of a Variable Pressure Gradient Wind Tunnel
Students: Shawn Allred (Rigby, ID), Sean Dunlop (Cheyenne, WY), Chad Gagnon (Colorado Springs, CO), and Bryon Riotto, Wilson, WY Advisor: Dr. Jonathan Naughton In recent years it has been discovered that the manner in which boundary layers initially develop significantly influences the rest of the flow.   There are many situations in which the initial development of boundary layers is in a favorable pressure gradient (FPG) rough surface environment. For instance, the initial development of a boundary layer over a submarine hull is in a FPG rough boundary layer environment. Despite the many applications, FPG rough boundary layers have not been studied adequately. For this reason, the University of Wyoming Aeronautical Laboratories (UWAL) is interested in developing a wind tunnel capable of accurately and consistently producing favorable pressure gradients. DRAG Engineering, a Mechanical Engineering student design team at the University of Wyoming , designed a full scale FPG wind tunnel that allows adjustment of the pressure gradient by means of a movable ceiling in the tunnel.  The team fabricated and tested a scale model of the tunnel to prove the design parameters.
JEM Engineering - Child Lift Wheelchair
Students: Justin Henshaw (Gillette, WY), Earle Mock (Sidney, NE), and Matthew Price (Julesburg, CO) Advisor: Dr. David Walrath Tyler, a 13 year old who has been disabled by shaken baby syndrome, is in the care of foster parents.  He has motor skills equivalent to those of a 3-month old child.  In addition he is blind and deaf without verbal communication abilities.  After hearing this story JEM Engineering founded by Justin Henshaw, Earle Mock, and Matthew Price, students in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Wyoming, agreed to help his current foster parents care for and handle Tyler by designing and manufacturing a wheelchair that can raise and lower Tyler to help with his transfer from the floor to the wheelchair and from the wheel chair to a bed.  Design specifications for the wheelchair include the capacity to lift Tyler from nearly ground level to a height of at least 32 inches with the ability to recline.  The wheelchair must include safety straps, be relatively light in weight, durable, and maintain most of the characteristic of a wheelchair as prescribed by the Americans with Disabilities Act. These specifications were developed in consultation with Tyler’s foster mother.  The wheelchair will primarily be used in the home and school with limited outdoor exposure.  The wheelchair was designed using a standard wheelchair as a base with an added scissor lift driven by a worm gearbox and hand crank.  The fabrication of the Child Lift Wheelchair was completed in the College of Engineering Machine Shop and tested in the Senior Design Assembly and Testing Laboratory.