Design of a flexible machine for the in-situ architectural machining of surfaces

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2006.Water-like wave patterns on surfaces are seen in the walls of the Glaphyros Apartment in Paris, France and in the Frankfurt Nightclub in Frankfurt, Germany (designed by Mark Goulthorpe). These 3-D surfaces were created by first constructing molds which is an extremely time-consuming and inefficient process. It is also difficult to transport a large mold from the machine shop where it was created to the building site where the panel will be installed. Additionally, the non-modularity of molds requires that a new one be created for a different design. It would be much simpler and efficient if the mold is replaced with a portable apparatus that can machine the surface directly. The main concept is a vertical milling machine appropriately named the Wall-Mill. The goal of this thesis project is to design and construct a prototype of the Wall-Mill.by Tiffany Yang.S.B

The Role of Spatial-Visual Skills in a Project-Based Engineering Design Course

Although spatial-visual skills have been found to be a strong predictor of success in and aptitude for engineering practice and related technical fields, comparatively little research has been conducted on its function in engineering coursework, particularly engineering design. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of spatial-visual skills in a core undergraduate mechanical engineering design course requiring each student to design and build a robot to accomplish a complex task in a competition. The researchers hypothesized that students with higher spatial abilities would produce more complex designs (although complexity is not necessarily desirable); as spatial abilities are associated with understanding how physical objects can be assembled, students with high spatial ability may be better able to understand and design intricate integrated systems. The Purdue Spatial Visualization test was administered to 137 students (79 male, 58 female) at the start of the course, and these results were analyzed with self- assessments of each student’s experience in tasks associated with spatial skills (such as creating origami models, sketching, and creating CAD models), the complexity of their produced robot, and their robots’ performance in the culminating class competition.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award 0830134

Documentation in Progress: Challenges With Representing Design Process Online

Web-based documentation platforms afford lightweight and visually rich mechanisms for designers to share documentation online, yet present challenges regarding representation, particularly for collaborative teams. This paper highlights some of these issues through a descriptive case study based on the use of a new web-based social media tool for documenting the development of design projects called Build in Progress. Undergraduate students worked in teams to design musical construction kits and documented their process using Build in Progress over the course of three weeks. We examined students’ project pages to determine trends with how students visually represented their design process, and we gathered students’ experiences using the platform through surveys and interviews with select project teams. We found that groups developed their own representations of their design process via tree structures afforded by Build in Progress that present the simultaneous development of distinct elements of their projects and highlight the contributions of each student on the team. The interviews revealed differences between how internal and external documentation are presented and contrasting approaches to creating narrative and instructional documentation based on the intended audience. In particular, we found that students interpreted the tool as one used to help others recreate their design, which led to the omission of several parts of their design process, including experimentation and mistakes. These results suggest the need to further develop tools to support reflection on process rather than product

Pervasive Layering in the Lunar Highland Crust: Evidence from Apollos 15, 16,and 17

This paper presents results of a photogeologic reconnaissance of 70 mm photographs taken on the lunar surface during the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions, whose primary objective was to investigate the lunar highland crust. Photographs at all three sites, notably the Apennine Front, show pervasive layered structure. These layers are easily distinguished from lighting artifacts, and are considered genuine crustal structures. Their number, thickness, and extent implies that they are lava flows, not ejecta blankets or intrusive features. They appear to be the upper part of the earliest lunar crust, possibly forming a layer tens of kilometers thick. Remote sensing studies (X-ray fluorescence and reflectance spectroscopy), indicate that the highland crust is dominantly a feldspathic basalt. It is concluded that the highland layers represent a global crust formed by eruptions of high-alumina basalt in the first few hundred million years of the Moon's history

Workshop: Guidelines for the safe manufacture of refrigerated wheat-flour noodles

Established and supported under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre Progra