Team Members & Role:

• Morgan Simco – Team Lead
• Dev Shah-Analysis Lead
• Alexander Green-Design Lead
• Zachary Roland-Fabrication Lead
• Dyson Barbour-Evaluation Lead

Abstract:
The MIE Smart Pilot process is a system envisioned by Professor Lagrant to teach students about topics related to Industrial Automation. The system consists of storage hoppers, stepper motors, and feed wheels. Skittles are classified by color and deposited into one of six holding bins of the dispenser. The user can select the color and quantity of Skittles to dispense for packaging, and the stepper motors rotate the feed wheels to dispense the predetermined amount of Skittles. The system was designed to sort and dispense Skittles candy, and was intended to be used for teaching foundational manufacturing engineering concepts in multiple engineering courses. However, the original system encountered issues with candy bridging (getting stuck) at the bottom of the storage hoppers, and a mounting arrangement for the motors and feed wheels that lacked proper support, alignment, and maintainability. Moreover, the dispensing accuracy was not satisfactory as it often dispensed more than one candy simultaneously. In order to solve this issue, this team decided to adapt the archimedes screw concept to incorporate a sliding trap door that will only dispense material when two holes are aligned. This allows for control of the dispensing rate while simultaneously incorporating advantages of the previous design such as universality and the prevention of jamming. Through iterative design and testing, this team was able to successfully complete the goal of controlling the dispensing rate of this system allowing for improvement for future use.