Other Mechatronics Projects
(at U. of Utah supervised by S. Devasia)

(Interested in participating in a mechatronics project?
See mechatronics curriculum at UW)

Undergraduate Design Projects in Mechatronics:

The mechatronics design projects were the final projects for the Mechatronics course sequence. This was a required course and the number of students ranged from 30 (quarter system when the course was offered twice a year) to 60 (semester system when the course was offered once a year).  The objective of the design project was to provide students with hands-on training in mechatronics design, which aims to bridge the gap between different fields like electronics, mechanical systems, automated information collection, and control. The design project also gave students a chance to apply their engineering knowledge to an open-ended design problem.  Students were encouraged to be creative and use available resources to their advantage to construct a device that meets the competition rules. This course was part of  a new Mechatronics Certificate Program for the Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Curriculum at the U. of Utah (developed in collaboration with Prof. Sanford Meek).

·    Mechatronics 1996: ME318 (W96), ME319(S96), ME320(A96)

      Student built autonomous vehicles that sorted payloads and carried them to different bins.

·    Mechatronics 1997: ME319(S97), ME320(A97)

      Student built autonomous sumo-wrestling robots that competed to shove the opponents out of a ring.

·    Mechatronics 1998-99:  ME3200(A98), ME3210(S99)  

Student built autonomous hockey-playing robots.  In the final competition, there were eight student groups with a total of sixteen robots (two robots per team). The goal of the competition was to make the most number of goals in a three-minute period.
 

Hockey Playing Robots Video 1

Hockey Playing Robots Video 2

Video of Sumo-Robots

      Example Robots built by students. Left photo shows a Sumo-Wrestling Robot with a light sensor at the top to detect the center of the hockey ring (where a light bulb was placed) and various devices to ram or shove the other robot out of the ring. For the hockey-playing robots (right photo), photo-sensors were used to detect the hockey puck. In both cases ultrasonic sensors and touch sensors were used to detect other robots. Microcontrollers were used to monitor sensors and control these completely autonomous robots.

Interested in participating in a mechatronics project?
See mechatronics curriculum at UW