Engineering Design Day Fall 2020

Siddharth Sadhu  | Safwan Hossain | Dima Ismail | Meera Divakaran | Bilal Ayyache

A major concern for academic institutions in recent times has been providing resources to students in order to ensure quality education. Limited resources require efficient allocation in order to meet students demands. Our project poses to keep students informed about the status of these resources in real time, with the assistance of image recognition and real-time streaming of data.

The app can detect and display real time room occupancy, motion capture, and heat map data to an accuracy of 85%, allowing students to quickly find available study spaces while maintaining social distancing and adhering to building occupancy rules. The device maintains an overall cost of less than $100 per unit.

Faculty Advisor: Petros Spachos, PhD., P.Eng.

Health & Safety, Machine Vision, Resource Optimization

Austin Gomes | Shina Ng Yung Kiat | Nicholas Szendrey | Jacob Barbara

A pilot anaerobic digestion reactor system was designed for the purpose of digesting manure and food waste generated on campus. The purpose of this project is to provide a more environmentally beneficial waste management alternative for the University of Guelph, allowing for the diversion of food and agricultural waste streams from landfill, whilst simultaneously generating methane gas for energy utilization by the University, and class A biosolids which can be used as an agricultural fertilizer. This idea of a sustainable cycle keeps in line with the school's ideals where the University of Guelph is committed to building a stronger, more resilient, and sustainable community.

Faculty Advisor: Sheng Chang, PhD, P.Eng.

Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Resource Optimization, Waste Management

Chuan Tran | Kristine Lamont | Luca Sentenai | Aaronvir Rakkar

In the province of Ontario, water supplied to homes is required to be potable. This results in the same quality of water used for human consumption to also be used in toilets and for other processes where water quality is not of high importance. Due to increasing populations and demand on freshwater supplies, potable water supplies must be conserved to ensure an adequate drinking water supply for future populations. Over pumping of groundwater aquifers can cause land subsidence and saltwater intrusion, further restricting freshwater supply. The primary objective of this design is to determine the ability of a residential greywater system to reduce water and energy demands.

Faculty Advisor: Erica Pensini, PhD, P.Eng.

Environment, Resource Optimization, Water

Hanaan Nazir | Noah Chacko | Mina Abdul Ghani | Nikhil Patel

Current dental procedures rely on pre-operative imaging technologies such as computed tomography and X-rays to plan for implant positioning and location. The lack of guidance during implant procedures for dental surgeons and insufficient pre-operative planning, means there is a need for an intraoperative smart sensing dental drill that can accurately guide dental surgeons by providing them with real time feedback. VisuaDent can accurately detect the position of the drill bit as it is drilling through the patient mouth. The device provides dentists with a real time visual regarding the position of the tooth during the implant procedure.

Faculty Advisor: Bob Dony, PhD, P.Eng.

Medical

Nina Novak | Ian Censner| David Kiernan 

The project proposes a pilot scale design for a small-medium sized dairy facility to produce their own ethanol-based hand sanitizer from cheese whey that they produce. Cheese whey is a liquid by-product of the cheesemaking process with 9kg of whey produced per kg of cheese. Due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an increased demand for hand sanitizer products to be used in stores, gyms, schools and at home. This design presents the opportunity for dairy facilities to profit on whey that would otherwise be spread on land or fed to animals.

Faculty Advisor: Ping Wu, P.Eng.

Agriculture, Food/Drink, Process Improvement, Resource Optimization

Jarod Schmidt | Keagen Branigan | Marcus Heaven | Japjit Pawar

Small modular reactors (SMR’s) is an emerging technology that has proven to be beneficial compared to pressurized water reactors. JJKM is analyzing the additional benefits by altering the coil cross-sectional geometry to a square tube rather cylindrical tube. ANSYS was used to simulate both geometries and determine an effectiveness difference. Under thin wall conditions, the effectiveness of a cylindrical and square helical coil is 87.5% and 99.1% respectively. Stainless steel is also environmentally friendly as it is recyclable and non-degradable. The report will discuss these topics in-depth and address potential sources of error and final recommendations.

Faculty Advisor: Shohel Mahmud, PhD, P.Eng.

Energy, Process Improvement

Aryn MacLean | David Proracki | Domenique Mastronardi

The overall goal was to develop a compostable and non-toxic alternative to fast-food sandwich wrappers made from waxed paper. These wrappers have a very short use phase and are neither recyclable nor compostable; as such, they contribute to the overwhelming plastic pollution crisis. Also, the paraffin wax used in traditional fast-food wrapping has been linked to environmental and human toxicity. Prototypes were created using different waxes that met the project constraints, and their compostability was tested. Ultimately, rice bran waxed paper best optimized the criteria and provides opportunity for commercialization.

Faculty Advisor: Ashutosh Singh, PhD, P.Eng

Agriculture, Environment, Food/Drink, Health & Safety, Resource Optimization

Rollin Luo | Andrea Stangl | Omar Elhag | Tayyaba Majeed

Seat pan insert is designed to reduce pressure when sitting for long periods of time in an office or workspace setting. Design consists of two layers of foam, a gel layer, a nylon cover, and straps. Design is meant to encompass a larger population than current products through various sizes, and passively regulates temperature. The cushion is secured to the chair via a strap mechanism and the pressure is reduced through a combination of contouring, and memory foam.

Faculty Advisor: John Runciman, PhD, P.Eng.

Biomechanics, Health and Safety, Medical

Sylvie Hardman | Solomon Bachar | Matt Reuter | Jeffrey McKay

This project aims to create an ergonomic tattoo chair that focuses on the client and artist's comfort during the process of getting a tattoo while retaining all functions needed for an artist to do their job effectively. As getting a tattoo can mean hours of sitting still while being poked by needles, having a chair that is better ergonomically and functionally can drastically improve the experience of getting tattooed and have the client come back for more while having the artist do their work easier.

Faculty Advisor: Michele Oliver, PhD, P.Eng.

Health and Safety, Process Improvement

Amber Brasher | Andreas Koumoundouros | Kevin Barnfield 

Design of a wireless sensor network for monitoring water quality in remote locations.

Multiple nodes will be placed at the monitored site, measuring data in regular intervals. Each node sends its data back to the base station through the other nodes, working as a mesh network. This can then be uploaded to servers for analysis.

A machine learning model is also being developed using data sets provided by the City of Guelph. This will allow the data collected by the network to be used for prediction purposes (such as for flooding).

This system allows for a low maintenance, expandable network that can be used in a variety of applications.

Faculty Advisor: Bahram Gharabaghi, PhD, P.Eng.

Automation, Environment, Resource Optimization, Water

Francis Villarba | Yousuf Abdulmalek | Daniel Tadrous

Additive manufacturing is a growing branch in manufacturing which still has a room of improvement. The team made use of a pre existing solution to create an affordable way of printing metal into 3D shapes. The team has put together a prototype that is working with a room of improvement.

Faculty Advisor: Abdallah Elsayad, PhD, P.Eng.

Automation, Manufacturing, Materials, Robotics

Tareena Malik | Prakriti Satish | Carter Porter | Gregory Thomson

REFRIGI-MATE is a solar-powered portable vapor-compression  refrigeration system. The device is intended to provide a means of continual cooling of an insulated cabin in remote or desolate environments where external power is not available. The objective of this project being the ability to convert any regular-sized cooler into a self-sustaining one. Some applications of this technology could be vaccine transportation, medical emergency, and, camping. The proposed solution would use a standard vapor- compression refrigeration cycle powered by a battery that is recharged by a solar panel.

Faculty Advisor: Mostafa H. Elsharqawy, PhD, P.Eng.

Medical, Vaccine Transportation