Request for Project Offers
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MAE Students Jay Panchal, Nelson Dichter, and David Shira in the Engineering Fabrication Laboratory |
How we can help
Better-faster-cheaper requires a constant supply of fresh ideas and new technology. The Design Clinic can help with an outside perspective on your products and processes and can be your window on UC Davis engineering.
The Design Clinic can help you:
- Identify critical design areas by using a rigorous and methodical systems analysis.
- Increase product lifetimes by considering reliability, maintenance, manufacturing, suitability, failure mode, safety, and environmental issues during the design process.
- Innovate by using fresh approaches and new technology.
- Transfer technology between UC Davis and your company.
- Assess the potential of new technologies using campus labs and facilities.
- Document your designs using computer-aided engineering and design software.
- Encourage professional development by bringing your people to UC Davis to interact with faculty and students.
- Recruit graduates by building relationships with students.
- Ensure the long-term supply of employees by sponsoring activities in areas of interest to your company and industry.
- Enhance the visibility of your corporation within UC Davis.
When you share an engineering problem, you will get a team of 4-5 final-year students to work on your project for approximately 200 hours per student. They will be able to use many of the lab, computer, design studio, and prototype facilities on the UC Davis campus. In some cases, they will be able to carry your project to a physical prototype.
How you can help
We need you to help us train engineering students.
UC Davis has 3,100 undergraduate engineering students. The College of Engineering ranks in the top 20 among publicly supported undergraduate schools of engineering whose highest degree is a doctorate. For our programs to continue to improve and for our graduates to continue to succeed, we need to provide our students what you can best offer: the experience and feel of the profession.
As you know, a classroom can often only hint at the full range of skills needed in the engineering profession. Engineers use both their minds and their hands to create solutions to problems... and they do it in teams. Engineers also need to consider the concerns of a wide variety of interested parties, beginning with customers and including plant managers, accountants, and sales persons.
It is quite true that you will benefit by sponsoring a Design Clinic project. And, it is also true that when you take the time to work with students, you will be putting something important back into the profession and industry that you love.
Typical projects
In general, a project might involve the following.
Manufacturing design - make an existing product simpler, more easy to assemble or manufacture, or with features needed by a new set of customers.
Usage engineering - make a product more reliable, easier to maintain, more durable, or more environmentally friendly.
Line extension - provide more product options, reduce stocking units and part count, better utilize manufacturing capabilities, or speed changeovers.
Cost reduction - reduce cost from study of critical cost factors or streamline design and production activities.
Recent projects have covered a wide variety of issues, each requiring a fresh look at an existing problem. Recent projects include:
Deployable Boom for Spacecraft Magnetometer, Endoscopic Balloon Dilator, Thrust Vector Control System, Rescue Helicopter Winch System, Robotic Traffic Cone Placement and Retrieval, Hybrid Vehicle Concepts and Design, Elevator Position System, Enclosure and Speed Sensor, Hostage Situation Vehicle, Remote Control Vehicle, Re-design Roadway Patching Vehicle, Material Delivery System, CD Jukebox, Pan and Tilt Assembly, Road Friction Sensor, Loadlock Door Mechanism Design, Pavement Crack Sealer, Bottle Measurer, Torque Tester, etc.
Recent sponsors have included a wide variety of companies, both large and small. For example:
Accuray, Aerojet, General Applied Materials, Hewlett Packard, Motion Controls Engineering, Novellus Systems, Portola Packaging, Schilling Robotics, Tool Research Group, TSR Corporation, Watkins, Johnson
Recent comments are:
"It is a "win-win" situation for industry, students, and faculty."
"..(the Clinic) prepares students for the realities of the market place."
"..(the students) have provided me with a fresh perspective on my problems.."
Who does what
Sponsors - Industrial sponsors provide an engineering staff member for each project to act as a liaison between the company and the clinic and to participate in formal design reviews. Students will interact with this staff member on a regular basis.
Close interaction with the sponsoring company liaison is an essential feature of the Design Clinic.
Cost - A sponsor typically contributes $3000 per industrial project per year to support student efforts and to defray a portion of the overhead associated with the projects. Product realization costs are also the responsibility of the sponsor.
Any contributions to the Design Clinic goes entirely to support projects and is considered a tax-deductible gift to the teaching program.
Project Criteria
EME 185 A & B is the capstone design course sequence associated with the Design Clinic and is for our mechanical engineering students. It is intended to teach the concepts of system design involving not only the detail design of a product, but consideration of external and internal interfaces inherent in complex product development, as well as the multiple sources for product requirements and their priorities. Included are failure mode and safety aspects of a design resulting from trading possible optional solutions considering such parameters as cost and manufacturability.
Sponsors should therefore select projects, which can provide sufficient challenge to the student design teams, which consist of from three to five individuals. The projects should have the following characteristics:
- A real expectation that the project is potentially realizable either in the UCDavis shops as a prototype, or in the sponsor's facility.
- Planned interaction between sponsor's engineering or management staff and the student team, either on a scheduled basis or through e-mail, fax or phone, but particularly in the establishment of requirements and at designated design reviews.
- The project should have sufficient complexity in terms of its intended application or integration into a larger product or system. This could include physical or software interfaces, operational use, or maintenance.
- For those who anticipate using the design, it should be recognized that the completion date will be approximately two quarters after initiation and should consider that span in establishing the scope of the project.
- Projects can range from full systems to subsystems or to testing or quality control equipments.
Proprietary Projects
Due to the pedagogical nature of the Design Clinic, projects containing proprietary information are not appropriate. Students have multiple design reviews in an open setting with other design teams. Contact the Design Clinic staff for more information.
Project Application
If you feel you have a project which "fits the bill," submit a copy of the "Offer of Project" application to Dr. James Schaaf, the Design Clinic Director, via e-mail (jas@ucdavis.edu), facsimile at 530-752-4158, or mail at the following address:
Dr. James Schaaf
Design Clinic
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
One Shields Ave
University of California
Davis, CA 95616
If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact Dr. Schaaf at 530-752-5548 or Prof. Chattot, Chair of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, at 530-752-0812.
| Questions or comments to MAE Design Clinic Web Response. |
2009-09-02 9:19
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