A systems engineering design experience for the machine design curriculum

Traditional engineering education has tended to compartmentalize subject matter. This tendency can be viewed at a curriculum level where courses are established along subject lines such as Thermodynamics, Statics or Machine Design. There is also this tendency within the individual courses themselves. One purpose of a capstone senior design experience is to help students recognize the connectivity among the subjects throughout their curriculum as they apply their knowledge to a meaningful problem. Establishing projects that demonstrate the connectivity in a specific course is also beneficial, not only as it relates to the course material, but as a precursor to the more involved projects in the senior capstone experience. This paper describes a semester-long project for courses on machine design where the students are required to completely design a simple machine to demonstrate fundamental kinematic principles. The students are required to provide complete working drawings of the machine with all parts specified from vendor catalogs or drawn in sufficient detail for fabrication. From this system design project, the students gain experience with the activities required to specify the common machine elements that are discussed in a traditional classroom setting. They learn the importance and relevance of calculations required to support their decision making. They also recognize the influence imposed on the system design from individual component decisions. The scope of this project remains within the bounds of the course material with some application to the pre-requisite kinematics course.