Engineering News, January 16, 2006

January 16, 2006 Vol. 77, no. 1S

BLINDED BY SCIENCE: "Smart Blinds" are designed to automatically open and close based on the current lighting situation in order to keep a constant amount of light in the room. The project was one of 23 done by students of ME 102.

The practical and the imaginative come to life during the December ME 102 Design Expo

Once again, ME 102 students outdid themselves during the ME Design Expo, which took place in December. Twenty-three teams proudly demonstrated their projects to a crowd of student, staff, and faculty visitors who crowded into the basement of Etcheverry Hall. Here are a few of our favorites:

S'more, please
"We wanted to make something fun, something with food," said ME senior Kelly Jung. The result: "S'More Maker," an automated answer to that campfire favorite. "It's hands-free, convenient, and you don't need a fire to use it," says Jung.

The S'More Maker is an arm that rotates, grabbing graham cracker, chocolate, and marshmallow goo from individual stations. The arm holds the s'more under a heat lamp for 15 seconds until it melts into a ready-to-eat snack. Visitors quickly snatched up samples. It took the team one month to construct the machine and one week to debug it (you wouldn't want the arm to go haywire and wildly fling marshmallow goo). Team members were ME seniors Han Hwu, Kimberly Lau, Cheng Wang, Eric Hou and Kelly Jung.

Minesweeper
It was ME senior Greg Thorne's idea: a small-scale, autonomous blimp that hovers over potential minefields, detecting landmines. "A blimp is ideal, because it doesn't touch the ground," Thorne explained.

At the expo, the "Mine-Detecting Blimp" prototype floated down a hallway. As it passed over, it "read" squares of cardboard placed on the floor. Some had metal underneath, some didn't. The blimp accurately detected the material (a stand-in for actual ordnance) and transmitted its findings back to a computer. The team purchased the blimp bag but custom-designed the chassis and circuitry. Team members were ME seniors Jason Chan, Slava Arabadji, Jeremy Huff, Spencer Ahrens and Greg Thorne.

Open sesame
If much of engineering is problem-solving, no matter how routine and mundane, here's one we can all relate to: opening and closing blinds. In response, the team of Kurt Talke, Bruce Kaufman, Jared Nunn, David Huang and Ricky Roy created "Smart Blinds."

Their Venetian blind prototype responded to how much light was present, automatically closing and opening, and raising and lowering, to keep a constant amount of light in the room. Now that's window dressing.

To see all the projects, go to http://www.me.berkeley.edu/ME102/.

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