The goal of this project is to design, build and validate a 3-D soft tissue printer for the Arizona Simulation Technology and Education Center.

The printer uses a silicon-based material-extrusion system that connects to a nozzle feed for the printing operation. Stepper-motor-driven axial motion is controlled by a Raspberry Pi microcontroller.

Computer-aided design stereolithography models are loaded onto the printer via microSD card. The printer includes a heated bed for the additive manufacturing process. The primary use of the printer is to print medical models for medical procedure training.

The objective this project is to develop a system to align optical lenses within a riflescope subassembly during production. The designed optical assembly station allows alignment, in less than 20 minutes, of the target assembly to within specified tolerances.

To meet all the requirements presented, a nontraditional approach to optical alignment was adopted. The station projects an expanded laser beam through a refractive axicon lens, which transforms the beam into a ring that is sent through the bore-aligned lens barrel into a camera with complementary metal-oxide semiconductor sensors.

Misalignments of a scope lens within the barrel, such as tilt and decenter, cause changes to the thickness of the projected light ring and to the position of its center, which are detected by the camera. This data is used to adjust the lens until the error is within the acceptable tolerance for the target assembly.

Although 3-D printing has become increasingly popular in industry, particularly in rapid prototyping for product development, 3-D printers are still lacking as standalone devices.
To improve upon this technology, the team created a 3-D scanning system capable of analyzing plastic objects with dimensions up to 100 by 100 by 100 millimeters. Data is collected using phase-based, time-of-flight sensors, then analyzed and processed via a MATLAB-based program included with the scanner.
This program allows the user to export a computer-aided design stereolithography file of the scanned rendering, which can be redirected into any 3-D printer for fabrication.

The goal of this project is to develop an indiscernible button to perform a specific function to enhance airline passenger experience in super first class suites.

This system can be used to adjust passenger seats, open and close window shades, or turn the in-flight entertainment system on and off.

The new system improves upon current button design by introducing a fabric with electroluminescent paint that helps reduce failure due to accidents and reduces total system footprint. The paint doubles as a light source illuminating the buttons concealed under the fabric.

The goal of this project is to design a mechanism to compensate for vibration of aircraft passenger seat tables caused by turbulence. The system design includes three actuators, capable of handling turbulence up to 1g of acceleration, that move in up-and-down, rolling, and side-to-side directions. Sensor data from table movement and location is acquired by accelerometers and distance and weight sensors, and processed by an Arduino Zero, which tells the actuators when and where to move. The table is mounted on a credenza that keeps the table hardware in place and holds all the electronics, including the power source and cables.

The goal of this project was to investigate opportunities to increase efficiency by implementing Industry 4.0 “smart factory” technology, which centers on automation and data exchange, into the sponsor’s manufacturing facilities. The project also uses augmented reality, in the form of Microsoft HoloLens technology, to further improve manufacturing capabilities. The sponsor’s factory workers and engineers will be able to use the augmented reality system to view visually guided instructions for the assembly and manufacture of small satellites. The team also produced a trade study for the sponsor that analyzes Industry 4.0 and “smart factory” technology factors of interest to the sponsor, such as equipment cost and training time.

The Nasogastric Tube Placement Verification System was designed to determine the proper placement of a nasogastric tube in the stomach for tube feeding. Every year, many fatalities occur due to misplacement of nasogastric tubes. Current verification methods include X-ray and indirect verification. These methods are either expensive or inaccurate, and require a medical professional, creating a great need for a system that accurately indicates the correct placement of the tube in the stomach. The team designed a sensor, based on galvanic cell electrochemistry, that recognizes the acidic stomach environment. As the sensor enters the stomach, a chemical reaction produces a current that correlates to the pH of the solution. This current is processed by a microcontroller and indicates to the user whether the tube has been correctly placed. This system is specific, cost-efficient, and easy to use, allowing caregivers outside of the hospital to properly feed their patients.

There was a discrepancy between natural gas usage recorded by the sponsor at its power plants and what it was being billed by its suppliers. Fuel usage and measurement are critical to accurate operations and cost management, and the goal of this project is to assess the sponsor’s fuel measurement system in order to locate the source of the discrepancy. After mining large amounts of data supplied by the sponsor and finding a correlation to explain the discrepancy, the team developed a correction factor that aligned sponsor and supplier measurements. The team then integrated this correction factor into the power plant data management software to ensure that it recorded valid fuel usage.

Not all circuit cards received by the project sponsor are properly calibrated, so the goal of this project is to design and build a circuit card calibration device that tests card integrity quickly and easily at the sponsor’s manufacturing facility. Specifically, the output voltage of the cards needs to be verified at various operating temperatures. The design was a 7-by-14-by-4-inch device that uses a microcontroller to take periodic voltage readings from a circuit card placed in a temperature chamber cycling between -55 and 70 degrees Celsius. The microcontroller exports the voltage and temperature data to a microSD card for transfer to a computer at the manufacturing facility. This solution is fault-tolerant, easy to use, and will reduce cycle times and manufacturing costs.

RoboUmp is designed to evaluate whether a pitch is a strike more accurately and consistently than a human umpire. The design uses vertically oriented light detection and ranging, or LIDAR, sensors to measure the height of the ball above home plate, and microcontrollers process the sensor data to determine whether the ball is in the strike zone. The system incorporates three strike zones for players in different height ranges. If the LIDAR detects a ball in the strike zone, the microcontrollers relay the strike call to the umpire via an LED display. The system is accurate to within 1 inch vertically and 0.5 inches horizontally at ball speeds of up to 60 miles per hour. RoboUmp can be moved easily and installed without interfering with the players or the game.