Mechanical Systems

Research

Identifying Manufacturing Variations in Computerized Stitching

Our team worked with New Balance to investigate certain manufacturing processes for New Balance shoes at their Lawrence, MA factory.

Research

Faculty Advisor: Alessandra Ferzoco

Installing the Future of Wind

Accelerate Wind is developing rooftop wind turbines that can harness the increased wind speeds that occur at the edges of buildings. Our team supported the installation process by creating infrastructure to characterize and evaluate mounting structures for varied building types, and for characterizing the electrical system.

Research

Students posing in front of project poster at Summit

Faculty Advisor: Lawrence Neeley

CNC Conformal Coating Machine

A semi-automatic robotic spray-coating machine for simplifying and accelerating Blue Origin’s current in-house PCB rework process.

Research

Students posing in front of project with liaison

Faculty Advisor: Lawrence Neeley

SparkCharge Roadie V3 Environmental Hardening

A major obstacle to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles is the inability to refuel as efficiently as their internal combustion counterparts. SparkCharge, a leader in mobile EV charging solutions, currently serves markets across the United States, with services ranging from out-of-charge assistance to large-scale fleet charging. To ensure SparkCharge products are capable of providing consistent and reliable coverage at all times, the SparkCharge SCOPE team aimed to introduce retrofittable solutions to the Roadie V3 system that eliminate vulnerabilities during severe weather conditions.

Research

Students posing in front of project poster with liaison

Faculty Advisor: Alessandra Ferzoco

Water Everywhere: Understanding & Preventing Frozen Pipe Bursts with Modern IoT

Our SCOPE project aimed to solve the pipe-freezing problem by upgrading existing plumbing systems with intelligent sensing and action-taking. Specifically, we explored how LoRa®, modern low-power IoT (Internet of Things) technology from Semtech, can let us predict potential pipe bursts and take action to mitigate the problem.

Research

Faculty Advisor: Lawrence Neeley

New Balance Manufacturing Innovation

New Balance is dedicated to increasing manufacturing within the United States and building new technology into their automated manufacturing processes. The Manufacturing Innovation SCOPE team designed and prototyped solutions that automate several critical, labor-intensive steps in materials processing for shoe manufacturing. Automating these steps in the manufacturing process increase operator safety and reduce production time.

Research

Faculty Advisor: Alessandra Ferzoco

High-throughput pH Characterization of Lipid Nanoparticle Formulations

The Olin SCOPE team was tasked with designing a device to perform 96 pH measurements within 15 minutes. This first-in-class technology is an order of magnitude faster than current methods and will greatly expedite the characterization of new formulations.

Research

Students posing in front of project poster and finished project at Summit

Faculty Advisor: Lawrence Neeley

Blue Origin: PCB Rework Station

In this project, our team worked closely with Blue Origin’s research and development lab to understand the standards and difficulties of PCBA rework and designed a workstation to revolutionize this process. This station is self-contained and significantly reduces lead times, allowing Blue Origin to complete all rework in-house.

Research

Faculty Advisor: Alessandra Ferzoco

Compact High-Voltage Power Supply for Nuclear Fusion Reactor

Avalanche Energy is working on new electrostatic confinement technology to make a bench top nuclear fusion generator. Our project was to investigate the feasibility of compact high voltage power supplies that can operate in the range of hundreds of kilovolts and interface with their preexisting system.

Research

Faculty Advisor: Lawrence Neeley

Brandeis Rosbash Lab FlyBox Redesign

The 2022-23 Brandeis SCOPE team overhauled the original Roshbash Lab FlyBox's hardware, assembly, and software, creating a robust and polished tool to track the behavior of genetically modified fruit flies over multiday periods.

Research

Faculty Advisor: Alessandra Ferzoco

Improving CT Scanner Alignment During Installation

The 2022-23 GE Healthcare SCOPE team worked to improve CT image quality by creating a tool or process that will allow CT scanner installation technicians to achieve increased alignment precision.

Research

Faculty Advisor: Alessandra Ferzoco

Developing a Compact Fluid Management Module for Aerospace Electrolyzers

The 2022-23 SCOPE team collaborated with Giner Labs to improve the weight and volume of their proprietary electrolyzer oxygen generation system to lower costs and take up less valuable cargo room while maintaining a high degree of safety and reliability.

Research

Faculty Advisor: Alessandra Ferzoco

Energy Harvesting from Water Flow

The goal of this project was to understand manufacturability and control of a device used to generate electrical power from water flow in pipes to power sensors for smart water networks.

Research