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Based on findings of previous studies, there was speculation that two well-known experimental design software packages, JMP and Design Expert, produced varying power outputs given the same design and user inputs. For context and scope, another popular experimental design software package, Minitab® Statistical Software version 17, was added to the comparison. The study compared multiple test cases run on the three software packages with a focus on 2k and 3K factorial design and adjusting the standard deviation effect size, number of categorical factors, levels, number of factors, and replicates. All six cases were run on all three programs and were attempted to be run at one, two, and three replicates each. There was an issue at the one replicate stage, however—Minitab does not allow for only one replicate full factorial designs and Design Expert will not provide power outputs for only one replicate unless there are three or more factors. From the analysis of these results, it was concluded that the differences between JMP 13 and Design Expert 10 were well within the margin of error and likely caused by rounding. The differences between JMP 13, Design Expert 10, and Minitab 17 on the other hand indicated a fundamental difference in the way Minitab addressed power calculation compared to the latest versions of JMP and Design Expert. This was found to be likely a cause of Minitab’s dummy variable coding as its default instead of the orthogonal coding default of the other two. Although dummy variable and orthogonal coding for factorial designs do not show a difference in results, the methods affect the overall power calculations. All three programs can be adjusted to use either method of coding, but the exact instructions for how are difficult to find and thus a follow-up guide on changing the coding for factorial variables would improve this issue.
Cornhole, traditionally seen as tailgate entertainment, has rapidly risen in popularity since the launching of the American Cornhole League in 2016. However, it lacks robust quality control over large tournaments, since many of the matches are scored and refereed by the players themselves. In the past, there have been issues where entire competition brackets have had to be scrapped and replayed because scores were not handled correctly. The sport is in need of a supplementary scoring solution that can provide quality control and accuracy over large matches where there aren’t enough referees present to score games. Drawing from the ACL regulations as well as personal experience and testimony from ACL Pro players, a list of requirements was generated for a potential automatic scoring system. Then, a market analysis of existing scoring solutions was done, and it found that there are no solutions on the market that can automatically score a cornhole game. Using the problem requirements and previous attempts to solve the scoring problem, a list of concepts was generated and evaluated against each other to determine which scoring system design should be developed. After determining that the chosen concept was the best way to approach the problem, the problem requirements and cornhole rules were further refined into a set of physical assumptions and constraints about the game itself. This informed the choice, structure, and implementation of the algorithms that score the bags. The prototype concept was tested on their own, and areas of improvement were found. Lastly, based on the results of the tests and what was learned from the engineering process, a roadmap was set out for the future development of the automatic scoring system into a full, market-ready product.
Our project is to create a simplified, portable, modular electrocardiogram known as ECG/EKG. Most medical facilities, including hospitals, clinics, and skilled nursing facilities, still rely on traditional 12-lead EKG equipment consisting of a large cart with long 10 wires. These wires can be a pain to constantly detangle and rearrange to determine a person’s heart conditions. This creates issues in fast paced scenarios such as when a patient is experiencing a heart attack and needs an EKG stat. Additionally, the current technology can be somewhat unreliable at determining heart conditions, causing providers to request multiple EKG’s for patients. With our improved versatile EKG, we can help solve these issues and implement additional outpatient use with its portable features. This can be done by remotely monitoring heart conditions during activities such as exercise, sleep, or stressful events, without worrying about wire disturbance.
Our project is to create a simplified, portable, modular electrocardiogram known as ECG/EKG. Most medical facilities, including hospitals, clinics, and skilled nursing facilities, still rely on traditional 12-lead EKG equipment consisting of a large cart with long 10 wires. These wires can be a pain to constantly detangle and rearrange to determine a person’s heart conditions. This creates issues in fast paced scenarios such as when a patient is experiencing a heart attack and needs an EKG stat. Additionally, the current technology can be somewhat unreliable at determining heart conditions, causing providers to request multiple EKG’s for patients. With our improved versatile EKG, we can help solve these issues and implement additional outpatient use with its portable features. This can be done by remotely monitoring heart conditions during activities such as exercise, sleep, or stressful events, without worrying about wire disturbance.
Motorcycles must be designed for safety and long operation. Front suspension systems must in turn be safe and able to operate for long service lives. Challenges to achieving safe and long service lifetimes include designing components (rims, axles, forks, etc.) to withstand various loading conditions not just once but numerous times as a matter of fatigue life. An already developed CAD model of a motorcycle suspension was taken and optimized for various loading conditions. These conditions included static loading, braking, cornering, and wheelie and front impact loads. In all cases, front impact load was the critical loading condition when FEA in SolidWorks Simulation was conducted for the components. All components were then optimized to handle the impact load by changing geometry until safety factors of 4.0 ± 0.25 were achieved. Components were then analyzed for fatigue life, with all steel and magnesium components having infinite predicted fatigue lives and all aluminum components having fatigue lives predicted with corrected S-N curves created for up to 500 million loading cycles. The design was optimized with all components becoming improved for stress compliance, with room for improvement existing in both defining loads for analysis and developing more accurate and rigorous fatigue life models.