Student Project Showcase
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.
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 memorable capstone projects from previous years.
Beer Launching Fridge
The motivation for this project is fairly obvious. Midn. Murphy, Brunsman, Mercer, and Shaw clearly demonstrate Systems Engineering by integrating electronics and pneumatics with a mechanical structure to produce a self-serving launching beverage refrigerator. Note: no beverages were harmed during the development of this project.
The Lazy Guitarist
In this digital age, music in a digital format is common place with the explosive popularity of digital music players like the iPod. This has led the music industry to take music that once was played on an instrument and create a similar sound through a synthesizer. This project aims to replicate a song on a guitar instead of through synthetic digital music. The purpose of this project is to design a system that will play a guitar on its own; a task that has previously been accomplished only by human beings. Our system incorporates the instrument back into the equation to produce a truer sound. As a caveat, there is a novelty associated with this system due to the lack of the human component.
The Aquamonkey
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 side of a ship too! The Auqamonkey does all that through a highly innovative mechanical design that uses rare earth magnets and buoyant foam.
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.
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.
SailBot
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 wind-speed indicators. All that information was fed into an on-board computer which controlled various motors to adjust the rudder and sails.
Nanogram Soccer Robot
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.
Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
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.
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 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.
