Project Highlights

UBC Planar Motor Incorporated Capstone

My capstone group had the privilege to work with Planar Motor Incorporated on an automated pick/place machine. A highlight of this project is that it is more accurate than some of the milling machines that made it's custom parts. We estimate that it can accurately place to about 0.005mm. This is incredibly hard to verify when assembling and tuning in a broken, uneven wind tunnel as it is incredibly hard to square subassemblies to the main assembly. We estimate that the four teammates pictured here spent approximately 80 hours each on the project in its final week. From assembly/reassembly, to tuning, squaring, and replacing iterative parts that did not meet initial design specification, an immense amount of work was spent in overachieving our clients' requirements.

Camosun BC Games Society Capstone

This capstone was extremely interesting. The direction provided by the BC Games Society was to create a prototype torch that could stay lit for 45 minutes, be under 5 pounds be adjustable, and not go out in -30°C in 30km/hr winds. This was all accomplished with our design, and was further refined later with the use of a carbon fiber casing that replaced the 3D printed prototype. The highlight of this project was my capstone team and the complex thermal analysis required to ensure that components did not significantly degrade over 45 minutes no matter the ambient environment.

The early stages of testing various fuels was also incredibly fun. The video on the left was one such test, as we considered ways to ensure a strong, visible flame during peaks of the event (IE lighting the cauldron).