Our customer, Endress + Hauser is a leader in the measurement instrumentation industry. Endress + Hauser needs a portable demonstration unit that is easy to use with an easily accessible fluid. The unit must demonstrate the flow, level, and pressure of a fluid in an easy-to-understand manner for students ranging from kindergarten to college. We are employed to design, build, and test a portable demonstration unit to promote automation and manufacturing education to K-12 and college-age students.  

Allegion wants to secure a door with a sensor that can detect its position; their customers require the solution to be low power and “prep-less.” Door Position Switches are typically used when securing an entryway with electronic access control. Devices known as Magnetic Reed Switches are often used in combination with the door position system to define the status of the doors as open, closed, or of forced entry.

The purpose of this project was to develop a Bluetooth controlled bike lock that can be locked and unlocked by anyone who has been granted access by the owner. While there are many current bike sharing services in cities across the US and throughout the world, they all suffer from one critical drawback: they must be locked in a certain zone or at a specified docking station.

Currently in the world right now there are over  6 billion tons of plastic waste that can be recycled according to MANDIN.  However, a very small amount of plastic in the world is being recycled.  This project will eliminate plastic waste across the Purdue campus.  In addition to removing plastic waste it will be creating skateboards for Purdue students. Each skateboard produced will remove 1.8kg of plastic waste from the earth.

Purdue Libraries tasked our team of six engineering technology seniors to examine the research and writing practices of current engineering technology students, with the goal to investigate and propose a solution on how to better prepare these students’ information literacy skills for the workplace after graduation.

Team 20 developed a modular attachment joint for prosthetic arms. The joint features 16 electrical POGO contacts and two spring pins for a hold that is also easily detachable when the pins are simultaneously compressed. This joint allows users to easily change their prosthetic arms and end effector, allowing for more flexibility in completing day to day tasks. Each attachment would contain a unique ID number which informs the main arm what attachment has been placed on. This allows the primary controller to switch between operations efficiently when a joint is swapped.

Currently, Salk Institution for Biological Studies scans their Petri plates manually. These Petri plates contain plant roots that have been exposed to different environmental conditions. Salk analyzes how different conditions affect plant root growth. Creating a fully automated machine for this process would allow the company to utilize its time wisely in other areas. This automated system would allow the company to have a greater quantity of accurate scans in shorter increments of time.

In the State Farm building is a small 17-ton hot chamber die casting machine. Stellantis, our client, has sponsored our efforts to modernize this machine by adding digital logic controllers and modern sensors. These additions will increase the monitoring capability of the machine for its users. With the sensors installed, the pressure in the hydraulic systems and the strain in the tie bars could be recorded for operators to make sure the machine is operating safely.

The team is working on designing a model-based system for a system of our choice. The foundation problem is that the industry is rapidly growing, and we need to make it easier for LANL to create connectivity between different sections of their organization. The client wants a Model Based System to increase their efficiency. The model needs to be able to easily adjust the variables for their selected systems.