MENG 487/488 - Mechanical Design: Process and Implementation

Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science

Course Objectives
MENG 487/488 is the capstone design course in the mechanical engineering program. This
course is a unique opportunity to apply and demonstrate your broad and detailed knowledge of
engineering in a team effort to design, construct, and test a functioning engineering system. This
course requires quality design, analyses/experiments to support the design effort, and the
fabrication/testing of the engineered system, as well as proper documentation and presentation of
results to a technical audience. In addition to this, you are expected to learn to start your design
work early; iterate on your design often; treat all documents as “living documents” and update
them frequently; record everything in your individual notebook; use models, experiments,
prototypes, etc. to justify your ideas, providing adequate time to complete a task by
“sandbagging” the expected time and starting early, and working collaboratively with a team.

This course is primarily intended for mechanical engineering seniors. Electrical engineering
seniors are also permitted to join as long as they have an advisor in the EE department. It is only
very rarely appropriate for other students and instructor approval is required in these cases.
Prerequisites include MENG 280 , MENG 325, and MENG 361. MENG 390 is strongly
recommended.

Reference texts
 Shigley’s Mechanical Engineering Design, R. Budynas and K. Nisbett, McGraw-Hill,
2013
 Making Things Move, D. Roberts, McGraw-Hill, 2012
 FE Reference Handbook (http://goo.gl/ZYIxhF)

Format
The class will be held two times per week online on Tuesday and Thursday. Each week will
typically have a single one-hour lecture and an in-class activity to reinforce the lecture content,
on Tuesday and Thursday respectively. However, this structure will shift for some topics and
times in the course schedule. Students will be organized into teams starting in the second week,
preferably teams of four, with one student chosen by the instructors as the team leader. The team
will meet weekly with one of the course instructors to review team progress, establish goals for
the following week, and review the work done. Class time not used by lectures or in-class
activities is reserved for teams to work together. Attendance is mandatory for lecture, scheduled
lab time, and team-instructor meetings.

Teams will need to meet and work outside of scheduled course time in order to complete the
expected project goals. While this work time is not supervised by the instructors directly, teams
are accountable to each other and the team leader.

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Three design reviews will be held each semester to assess team progress. Class will not meet
during Reading Period, except for the final design presentations. There is no final exam, as final
presentations serve this purpose.

Instructors
 Dr. Joran Booth ([email protected]; Mason M5)

Support Staff
 Glenn Weston-Murphy ([email protected]; Becton CO46), Engineering
design specialist
 Kevin Ryan ([email protected]; Becton CO46), Electronics specialist
 Nick Bernardo ([email protected]; Mason B2), Machining specialist

Note: you must always do due diligence prior to meeting with support staff in order to not
waste their time. For example, if you wish to meet with Kevin, you must bring a schematic or
diagram of your circuit design. The schematic can be hand-drawn, but it should be completed
prior to the meeting

Teaching Fellow
 To be determined

Office Hours
Office hours will consist of the lab period following lecture and the team meetings with an
individual instructor. If teams or students need additional time, we will make ourselves available
upon request.

Adjustments to the Course due to COVID-19

Due to the unprecedented disruption of COVID-19, this course will make the following
adjustments to make the course as close to online-only as possible.

For the fall semester, all lectures and in-class will be held remotely via Zoom. Teams are strongly
encouraged to meet online and to reproduce assembled prototypes independently.

There will be no on-campus storage for projects as properly disinfecting projects is infeasible.
Students may order supplies using their team budget through Glenn, as usual, but the supplies
will be shipped to the student residence when possible. Hand tools can be ordered through Glenn
as well. Students are expected to continue to use the 3D printers provided to them in MENG 325.
We will provide all students with 3D printer filament and electronics prototyping kits so most
prototyping can be done remotely. The machine shop will be highly restricted, and so students
will be permitted to “order” parts to be machined by Nick.

Notebooks and binders should be kept digitally on a shared drive, such as Dropbox. The shared
drive should be shared between all teammates and course instructors.

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Whenever possible, office hours will be held remotely. When office hours cannot be held
remotely, students will use a designated laboratory for office hours. The laboratory will be
equipped with an overhead camera and projected screen so the instructors can maintain proper
distance while helping troubleshoot the hardware. Prior to accessing the laboratory, all
individuals hoping to enter must self-report symptoms and take any other necessary precautions.

Recording Policy for Online Interactions

The default FAS policy on recording is that the instructor’s lectures will be recorded and student
contributions in seminars and sections will not be recorded.

Consequently, for senior design, all online lectures will be recorded for asynchronous viewing.
Students are expected to attend synchronously if it is reasonable to do so. If students do not wish
to be recorded during online lectures, they should not share their video or audio. For bandwidth
management, we recommend keeping videos off anyway, unless presenting or asking a question.

Office hours and in-class activities will NOT be recorded, nor will team meetings be recorded.

As in all aspects of this class, students and instructors are expected to act professionally.

Course Requirements
The primary requirement of this course is the successful completion and documentation of
your team’s project. To facilitate the process, and demonstrate fulfilling the educational
objectives of the Mechanical Engineering Program, the following deliverables are required:
Team Requirements

Weekly design meetings – Each team will meet weekly with the teaching team during the lab
period. The purposes of these meetings are to monitor performance, to review the project
schedule, and to provide feedback.

Project binder – Each team must maintain a project binder that has the following sections:

 Design documentation – These documents, which your team will prepare for all
assignments requiring written work, will detail various aspects of the design and analysis
for the project. This documentation helps others understand your design decisions.
 Drawings – CAD, wiring diagrams, and programming flowcharts
 Presentations – Slides from the Concept, Prototype and Detailed Design Presentations
 3-9 reports – Weekly 3-9 reports

The team binder will be due one week after a successfully passed design review. The team binder
will contain all the above documentation and corrections requested during design reviews. The
documentation should all be treated as “living documents” and should be updated as the project
progresses. The project binder also serves as the formal report for this course, and each section
should include a brief description of its contents.

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Design reviews – Your team will have three design reviews each semester. Each design review
will focus on specific achievements necessary for the continuation of the project. Design reviews
consist of a presentation, prototype demonstration, and binder submission.

MENG 487

 Preliminary design review (Fall) – you will need to describe in detail the project scope
(i.e. problem definition, problem statement, technical benchmarks, customer
requirements, and engineering specifications), the expected engineering effort for your
design (i.e. what you expect to model and analyze), a basic business case for your design,
a preliminary Gantt chart for the whole project, a preliminary budget, and individual team
roles.
 Conceptual design review (Fall) – in addition to presenting updated information from the
prior design review, you will also present a summary of the concept generation process,
the system architecture diagram, circuit block diagrams, and function diagrams for the
selected concept, physical mock ups, and a detailed Gantt chart and budget for the
remaining project time.
 Detailed design review (Fall) - in addition to presenting updated information from the
prior design review, you will present detailed engineering analysis, including FMEA,
engineering models and experiments for at least all critical functions, CAD models for
the full design, circuit schematics, a bill of materials, and customer feedback on the
design, if applicable. You will also demonstrate a fully functional prototype (medium
fidelity). As before, the Gantt chart and budget should be updated.

MENG 488

 Subsystem design review (Spring) – you will need to present any updated information
relevant to prior design reviews in addition to manufactured and working prototypes for
the final critical subsystems.
 Critical design review (Spring) – you will need to briefly summarize all information from
prior design reviews in addition to performing a live demonstration of a fully functional,
manufactured prototype of your final design. You must also present an updated business
model, an estimate of manufacturing costs and volumes for your design, and comment on
design changes you would make to make it more marketable.
 Final presentation (Spring) – you will summarize your efforts over the full course for a
public audience. In addition, you will need to have improved the aesthetics of your final
prototype, finalized all documentation, conducted performance experiments on your
prototype, and return all materials in your workspace that are not part of your final
prototype.

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Individual Requirements

Individual design project (Fall only) – In the first week of the fall semester, you will complete
a short individual design project, which will consist of a short presentation and prototype. The
prototype must be 3D printed and all the electronics must be working.

Individual design notebooks – Your design notebook (or “lab notebook”) is a record of your
individual contributions to the design process and will be used to evaluate your level of effort on
the project. The lab notebook will include your project notes, calculations, and sketches. Also,
the lab notebook should catalog contributions to the project in terms of CAD drawings, wiring
diagrams, programming notes, and fabricated/procured components. This notebook is effectively
your record of the work in progress and has legal ramifications in the “real world.” Remember: “If it
is not written down, it did not happen.” At the end of the course your design notebook must be
submitted with the team’s Project Binder. Lab notebooks will be reviewed biweekly in lecture.

Weekly individual development (instructor judgement) – You will be evaluated by the quality
of your technical contribution to the team project, and how well you demonstrate your own
development as an engineer. This is evaluated primarily in the form of instructor judgement as a
result of reported contributions as recorded in the 3-9 reports, peer evaluations, and the final
design deliverables.

Fall MENG 487Grading

Individual contribution

 Individual design project 10%

 Individual design notebooks 10%
 Peer reviews 1%
 Instructor judgment 14%

Team collaboration

 Team mini-design project 4%

 Weekly 3-9 reports 5%
 Preliminary Design Review
o Presentation 2%
o Binder submission 5%
 Conceptual Design Review
o Presentation 2%
o Binder submission 5%
o Mockups / Prototypes 10%
 Detailed Design Review
o Presentation 2%
o Binder submission 10%
o Mockups / Prototypes 20%

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Spring MENG 488 Grading
Individual contribution

 Individual design notebooks 10%

 Peer reviews 1%
 Instructor judgment 14%

Team collaboration

 Weekly 3-9 reports 8%

 Subassembly Design Review
o Presentation 2%
o Binder submission 5%
o Manufactured subassembly prototypes 10%
 Critical Design Review
o Presentation 2%
o Binder submission 6%
o Final manufactured prototype 10%
 Final Presentation
o Presentation 2%
o Binder submission 10%
o Final refined prototype 20%

Note, the team grade may be adjusted for an individual student based on their individual
performance.

Late Work Policy

Assignments turned in within the first 24 hours after a deadline will receive 25% off the final
grade. Assignments turned in after 24 hours after a deadline will receive 50% off the final grade.

We understand that you all have other obligations outside of this course. In dealing with all
assignments, students need to act professionally, which includes negotiating for alternate
arrangements that the entire team can agree to. Once an extension has been negotiated, it cannot
be negotiated again.

If you have a conflict that prevents your team from submitting a deliverable, arrangements
must be made at least 2 days in advance. In-class presentations, design reviews, and
demonstrations are not eligible for extensions, except with a Dean’s excuse. If a single
member on a team has a Dean’s Excuse for a late team submission, the excuse applies to the
whole team. The only exception to this is a medical emergency or other severe emergencies. In
the case of a medical emergency, the individual or team should contact the instructors as soon
after the emergency as reasonably possible and be prepared to provide documentation of the
emergency, such as a doctor’s note.

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Mechanical Engineering Program Outcomes Required by ABET
This capstone course in Mechanical Engineering is the culmination of your undergraduate
engineering education. The course provides the opportunity to apply what you have learned
through coursework and your life experiences to the activity that is the essence of engineering:
DESIGN.

The accrediting agency for engineering programs, ABET, specifies the required educational
outcomes for all undergraduate engineering majors. As established by ABET, engineering
programs must demonstrate that their graduates have:

1. an ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying

principles of engineering, science, and mathematics

2. an ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with
consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social,
environmental, and economic factors

3. an ability to communicate effectively with a range of audiences

4. an ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations

and make informed judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions
in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts

5. an ability to function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership,

create a collaborative and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet
objectives

6. an ability to develop and conduct appropriate experimentation, analyze and interpret data,
and use engineering judgment to draw conclusions

7. an ability to acquire and apply new knowledge as needed, using appropriate learning
strategies.

Additional ABET requirements for graduates of mechanical engineering programs include:

1. Knowledge of chemistry and calculus-based physics

2. Ability to apply advanced mathematics through multivariate calculus and differential
equations
3. Familiarity with statistics and linear algebra
4. The ability to work professionally in both thermal and mechanical systems areas
including the design and realization of such systems

Further, ABET requires that students must be prepared for engineering practice through the
curriculum, culminating in a major design experience based on knowledge and skills acquired in
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earlier coursework and incorporating engineering standards and realistic constraints. These
include economic, environmental, sustainability, manufacturability, ethical, health/safety, social,
and political standards and/or constraints.

At Yale, MENG 487/488 is one of the mechanical engineering program’s primary methods to
address these requirements. These outcomes will be measured through the course and your scores
recorded, with your performance evaluated against your peers. We will also ask you to evaluate each
other with regard to contributions to the team effort at three points in each semester.

Note: this syllabus is a living document. We have planned out the semester as well as possible,
but it is inevitable that minor adjustments will be made alone the way. We will update these
documents and communicate those changes if and when they occur.