Engineering students at the University of Toledo designed ways to simplify life — from chopping wood to unloading a dishwasher — and displayed their prototypes Friday at the spring semester’s Engineering Senior Design Expo at Nitschke Hall.
While many of the final projects may have looked deceptively uncomplicated, design parameters, material analysis, and energy efficiency were wrangled through by each senior team.
For instance, no gasoline or hydraulic fuel, no electricity, and not even solar panels powered a machine — looking similar to a guillotine — that chopped wood. Instead, weight and gravity provided the force to split each block. The head of the roughly six-foot machine was easily cranked in place by hand.
It wasn’t particularly noisy or cumbersome or a pollutant.
Senior Nathan Raterman said the materials were difficult to find, with Dunbar Mechanical in Toledo donating much of that. A fellow student did the welding for the team that also consisted of Andrew DeMange, Christopher Billing, Brayden Robinson, Matthew Niekamp, and Alex Bertke.
About 45 teams participated in the end-of-semester project.
Another team of able-bodied young men came up with a scissor-lift mechanism that would raise the bottom shelf of a dishwasher to make it easier to unload.
The idea originated with Joseph Koch when his future father-in-law, who has two rods in his back, complained about bending over to empty the lower rack of dishes.
“It is for the disabled, or retirement homes, or anyone too lazy to bend over,” Mr. Koch said.
The stainless steel mechanized shelf is food-safe and can replace the bottom rack in 80 percent of commercial dishwashers.
“It’s nice and easy,” Mr. Koch said of the rack that raises to nearly the level of the top rack.
“Our goal is to improve the lifestyle of our customers in ways that will forever change the way they go about their lives in positive and forward-thinking ways,” said the stated goal of the team, which also consisted of Graeme Alcorn, Jordan Dearth, and Dominic Dasher.
Another design aimed to reduce needless trips to the mailbox. Team members Clifford Stacy, Spencer Lowery, Joshua Davenport, and Drew Diettrich devised an alert system that, through a phone app, lets recipients know when something is placed into, or removed, from their mailbox.
One project worked to reduce the amount of pedaling the team’s faculty adviser, Adam Shroeder, had to do when he was out with his family on a Surrey Bike made for four people.
“His kids don’t pedal much,” Austin Marchlewski said.
The modification increased the single-speed vehicle to eight speeds with the creation of an external gearbox, a semi-permanent fix that can be attached and removed as desired.
Seniors Andrew Perez, Christine Donnelly, Matthew Henry, and Tyler Blessing also contributed to the prototype.
The creation of a dog-treat dispenser for wheelchair users with limited mobility was undertaken by Caitlin Bibler with help from teammates Grant Epstein, Nicholas Lombardi, Mitchell Brunko, and Lincoln Miller.
“It runs very slowly. That was done on purpose,” Ms. Bibler said of the device that can be mounted to the side of a wheelchair.
The prototype is weatherproof, holds 6 ounces of treats, and can be triggered to release a single treat with a simple motion of one hand. There are no pinch points or small, easily breakable parts.
The three-hour expo drew UT professors and students and friends and family to the campus. More than 160 students worked with local businesses, industries, and federal agencies to help solve technical and business challenges.
Other projects ranged from a voice-controlled robotic arm and a tabletop wind tunnel to a bone conduction railing, a unique prototype that, when leaned upon with elbows, provides audio on historic moments at the university.
First Published April 28, 2023, 8:28 p.m.
