Spring 2023

The MIE Senior Design Showcase was held at UMass Amherst last Wednesday, May 10th. Each student team’s work was evaluated by six judges from within the MIE department, additional UMass faculty, and by local business leaders and entrepreneurs. The judges scored the teams on their ability to capture the needs of their customers, convert those needs into engineering specifications, apply engineering analysis to generate multiple designs or models, realize an optimal design or model, and evaluate how well the design or model met the original customer needs.

The top spot for the industrial engineers went to team 7801, Packaging Analysis for Web Industries, Jhanvi Dudhat, Max Hess, Bhupesh Kanth, Ryanne Mckenna, Madelina Montemagni

This team aimed to optimize the packaging process of a bovine pregnancy at Web Industries by identifying areas of improvement and develop strategies to make the overall process more efficient. Their analysis identified the least efficient parts of the process and developed improvement plans, including two alternate layouts which would save over 4200 working hours per year, and provide cost savings between $58,000 and $96,000 annually. The team will be presenting their work in New Orleans later this month at the IISE annual conference and expo.

First place for the semester-long mechanical engineering projects was earned by team 1506, in Hand Robotic Gripper Group Rachel Berry, Natalija Beslic, Johnathan Czernik, Savannah Macero, Millan Taranto

This team developed new end-of-arm tooling for the UMass Human Robotic Systems Laboratory for research on learning by demonstration.  The inHand gripper is designed to be used with a single human hand to train the robot’s arm to perform grasping tasks with greater human-like movement. The design enables smooth back drivability and movement, ensuring the accurate demonstration of tasks. The group’s gripper boasts a minimalistic design that emphasizes robustness, cost efficiency, and user friendliness that has the potential to be an accessible and powerful tool contributing to the burgeoning fields of robotics and neuroscience, among others.

Top honors for the yearlong industrially sponsored mechanical engineering projects was earned by team 9707, General Dynamics Drilling and Pinning. Alexa Attleson, Tyler Millay, Henry Lanza, Andrew Ruggiero, Hunter Williams

This team was tasked with improving the drilling and pinning process of large electronics cabinets. The objective was to reduce the process time by 50% while maintaining the current level of precision and safety and improve ergonomics. The team’s design of a horizontally mounted, quick detaching drill press met their goals by eliminating crane rotations, excessive tool changes, the application of additional paint protection layers, and reducing cleaning pin holes. The team estimates their solution will reduce drilling time from 27 hours to 50-minutes, and allow the work center to remain profitable over a multi-year fixed price contract.

The Teams: