The Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering supports a variety of international projects. Some of the most recent are listed below. Where web pages of the projects are available, the links are provided.

2007/08 Design, Fabrication and installation of a Water Pump in Mali, Africa – Advisor: Osama Ettouney, MME

Team Members
Asha Ananthu, EGM
Meaghan Geist, EGM
Chris Hopkins, MCH
Ryan Reinke, MCH
Emily Yeager, EGM

The village of Gwele  Kona, Mali, needs a water pump to provide its inhabitants with means of pumping water into a holding tank. The pump will allow the people of this village to be self sufficient especially in the summer as the area’s wells dry up during the hot summer months, and they have to walk far for water that is not safe. The design team will be required to install their final design in the village during the summer of 2008; they also need to train the people on how to maintain the pump. Thus the pump’s design should be simple, durable and its parts are easy to find or fabricate locally. (Ms. Gail Webb, Jean-Pierre Dabou, customers)

2005/06 Global Seismometer Project with Palacky University, Czech Republic

 

Earthquakes can be dramatic and devastating events which easily turn large urban areas into fields full of debris, killing thousands and leaving millions homeless. Earthquakes can also be hardly noticeable and subtle events that can be recorded only by sensitive scientific devices called seismometers. This project is not focused on earthquake prediction, triangulation or tectonic research. Instead, this is a project to conduct near real-time observations using the principles of mechanical vibrations, wave mechanics and computer science. This project further involves global perspective by collaborating with the Palacky University (Dr. David Skoupil and his students). This project will be to design, build and test a global Seismic Internet Monitoring Application (SIMA). This will require utilizing advanced mechanical engineering knowledge to detect earthquake data and use Internet protocol to transfer and store it in near real-time. A knowledge of engineering design, data acquisition and dynamics/vibration will be very useful in this project. Further, emphasis will be given on analysis using Matlab as computational tool.

2003/04 Design of an International Engineering Curriculum, Interdisciplinary with Poland

 

Students will develop and propose a collaborative arrangement between the University of Mining and Metallurgy, International School of Technology (IST) in Cracow, Poland and SEAS for exchange of students and joint design projects. This will involve comparison of engineering education programs and laboratories, investigation of models of international educational cooperation, and the development and presentation of proposals for SEAS in Oxford and IST in Cracow over spring break.

2002/03 Design & Integration of a Packaging Cell in FMS, CIMS Lab, Miami University, Oxford, OH and Miami University Dolibois European Center, Luxembourg (Remote Control of Robots, Ecole d'Ingenieurs du Pas-de-Calais, France)

 

This project will require the student to spend some time in Luxembourg & France. The project is connected to our recent effort to establish an engineering presence at Luxembourg. As part of this project, you will be required to establish a communication link between our CIMS lab and Epic in France. The communication is in the form of manipulating a robot and monitoring its progress in achieving tasks, similar to what NASA did for the Pace Finder on Mars.

2001/02 A Virtual Manufacturing Lab at Miami University Dolibois European Center, Luxembourg, and integration with FMS, VIMS Lab, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio (Design and Manufacturing in Global Markets, Luxembourg, Europe)

 

This project may require you to spend some time in Luxembourg. The project is connected to a new effort to establish an engineering presence at Luxembourg for the first time. During the spring of 02, Dr. Ettouney will be spending a few months in Luxembourg to develop a virtual lab for design and manufacturing purposes. All students, including engineering students who conduct design work on specific open-ended projects as well as course-based projects, will use this lab later. As part of this project, you will be required to establish a communication link between our CIMS lab and the Virtual lab in Luxembourg. Also, the project has two steps, the first is to design and complete a working cell, and the second is to connect it to the virtual lab in Luxembourg. Three sets of ideas are available for up to three teams: the first is based on manipulating a mobile automatic guided vehicle. The second is related to a flexible-milling cell. The third is concerned with implementing a virtual-manufacturing cell in between the CIMS lab and the Luxembourg's virtual lab.