Overview


MEAM 150 provides students with an immersive, hands-on education in the prototype development process. This includes layout, measurement, part generation, milling, turning, computer-controlled machining, and many other manufacturing processes. Through the construction of a semester-long project, students gain proficiency in the skills necessary to successfully prototype a variety of mechanical systems.


Assignments


A1: Engineering Drawings - due Monday, Jan 31st
A2: Operation Sequences - due Monday, Feb 21st
A3: Flywheel Design - due Monday, Mar 28th


Stirling Engine Project


The following table lists the parts that are due at the BEGINNING of your lab section during the week specified:

due week of part machine(s) difficulty drawing
Feb 14 Mounting Block Mill, Prototrak 4 01-D
Piston Flange Prototrak 2 03-D
Feb 21 Piston Lathe, Mill 3 07-D
Crankshaft Bearing Tube Lathe 3 08-C
Feb 28 Piston Connecting Rod Prototrak 3 05-D
Displacer Rod Fork Mill, Lathe 3 13-B
Mar 14 Balance Weight Prototrak 2 10-T
Heat Sink Lathe, Mill 4 12-E
Mar 21 Web Prototrak 2 02-C
Displacer Bushing Tube Lathe 4 09-C
Mar 28 Displacer Connecting Rod Prototrak 3 06-B
Output Shaft Lathe, Mill 2 18-D
Apr 4 Return Crank Prototrak 3 14-C
Bedplate Mill, Prototrak 3 04-C
Apr 11 Flywheel Subassembly ? 4-6 17-A
Apr 18 Base ? 2-4 16-A
Apr 25 Completed Engine n/a 4 200-E

Past semester schedules can be found here.


Wall of Champions


At the conclusion of the project, we test each student's engine using a small butane table torch. The fastest engines from each semester are listed below:

Summer 2008 (08B) - Jamie Gewirtz, 1605 RPM
Spring 2009 (09A) - Andrew McGrath, 1396 RPM
Summer 2009 (09B) - Kyle Sirianno, 1200 RPM
Fall 2009 (09C) - Lucas Hartman, 1389 RPM
Spring 2010 (10A) - Maria Kaufman, 1849 RPM
Summer 2010 (10B) - Robert Parajon, 1380 RPM
Fall 2010 (10C) - Paige Willoughby, 1498 RPM
Spring 2011 (11A) - Pablo Castillo, 1624 RPM


Lecture Slides


While a large majority of this hands-on course takes place in the machine shop, there is some classroom content, the slides for which are below. Note - some images shown in the slides were acquired from the web and it is entirely possible that I lost track of the source at some point - please let me know if you have a citation that you believe should be included.



The Displacer Fork
Anam Omar (MEAM, class of 2012) created the following video of Evan Hyde (MEAM, class of 2011) working on one of the Stirling engine parts (the brass displacer rod fork). She shot over 2 hours of footage to create this minute-long video for her CINE 061 (Film/Video 1) course in the Fall of 2008.

(:quicktime Attach:machineshop_anam.mov height=496 width=720 controller=true autoplay=false:)