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Undoubtedly, one of the most talked about aspects of the major is the 1/C Capstone Design projects. During the 1/C year students get to design, build and test a project of their choosing. Depending on your interests the project can be an entirely unique idea, or it can be an entry in a design competition of some type, or perhaps a research project with a faculty mentor.
Design Projects | Design Competitions | Research Projects
We'll let you build just about anything you can dream up (as long as its safe and we have the parts). Most teams consist of 2-3 students. Check out some of last year's best capstone projects.
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The Aquamonkey by Midn. Manoliu |
| Think about how you could build a vehicle that could travel on land, as well as on water, is small and easy to steer. Oh yeah, it should be able to climb up the size of a ship too! The Auqamonkey does all that through a highly innovative mechanical design that uses rare earth magnets and buoyant foam. |
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Rolling Sentry by Midn Hixon, Ramos, and Savoie |
| These midshipman designed a novel locomotion scheme to make a robot sentry vehicle. They designed an advanced feedback control system that shifts the robot's center of gravity to cause it to roll forward, stop and change direction on command. They were the winners of the Marsh Award - the departmental prize for the best 1/C design project. |
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As part of the capstone experience, many of our students elect to participate in technical or design competitions. Many of these teams work with midshipman from other majors. Often the students and their faculty mentors traveled to a national or international competition to showcase their work.
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The Sailbot by Carron, Herring, Schauss |
| Imagine trying to teach a robot to sail. That is exactly what this group of students had to do when they entered the first international autonomous sailboat competition, hosted here on the Chesapeake Bay. They retro-fitted a standard, small, sailboat with digital sensors such as GPS, a compass and windspeed indicators. All that information was fed into an on-board computer which controlled various motors to adjust the rudder and sails. |
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Nanogram Soccer Robot by Midn. Eastman and Watson |
| Have you ever watched a soccer match through a microscope? RoboCop International sponsored a competition in which Micro Electrical Mechanical (MEM) devices were pitted against each other in a soccer match. The field is so small (2.5 mm), you need a microscope to see it. Systems Engineering, in a joint effort with students and faculty from the Electrical Engineering department, entered the first ever such competition. They designed and fabricated the microscopic devices and controlled them by sending various electrical signals through the paying field. |
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Autonomous Under Water Vehicle by Midn. Cappabianca, Enloe, Hannah, Keicher and Studlar |
| The AUVSI organization sponsors an annual competition in San Diego, CA. Student groups must design and build a completely autonomous underwater vehicle (no remote control). Events include, navigating through a series of underwater gates using underwater cameras, and surfacing within a specified area. Students and faculty from Systems Engineering have led the Naval Academy team for the past 3 years. This August they took 5th of 25 teams.
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Systems Ball |
| Before there were BattleBots and Robot Wars...there was Systems Ball! For the past 20 years students in the Systems Engineering department have chosen to participate in a unique type of intramural sport – robotic combat. The rules are simple: Climb the ramp, and try to place the ping pong ball in the hoop to score. Along the way, try to do as much damage as possible to your opponent. Some of the entries have been downright diabolical, sporting hammers, saw blades, axes and all sorts of crazy weapons. One of the teams this year even had an audio speaker on their entry to hurl insults at the competition. Join us on the last day of every spring semester as we celebrate all that is great about engineering with door prizes, a halftime show, and lots of exciting competition. |
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Still other students decide to engage in independent research, either through ES495, the Honors Major or the highly selective Bowman or Trident research programs. Many of them travel to present and publish their work at engineering conferences with their faculty mentors.
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Swarm Robotics by Midn. Barnes |
| The Trident Scholar program is the most selective undergraduate research experience at USNA. Midn. Barnes, an all-american athlete, chose to study robot swarms – groups of simple robots that work together much like ants or bees. Along with his faculty mentor, he presented his work at the IEEE Southeastern Symposium on Systems Theory in New Orleans. |
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Autonomous Surface Vessel by Midn. Regneier |
| As part of the Honors program and the Bowman Scholar program, Midn. Regnier built this 10 ft. autonomous ship, outfitted with 6 motors, a laptop and all kinds of navigation sensors. The boat can autonomously track a GPS trajectory. This project facilitated an ongoing, ONR sponsored faculty research program. Midn Regneier’s results were reported in the IEEE Journal of Mechatronics and appeared in a video proceeding at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation. |
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