Wrapping Everything Up

Good Evening!


Well everybody, it's been a great year working on this project.  We've put in a lot of time and effort and with Maine Day having come and gone our project is drawing to a close.

Last Friday, April 26th, Dan and I spent our afternoon testing the last of our catch cans on the flow bench.  Just as we finished our last test, Jon and Forest walked in with our finished catch can design in hand.  We looked over the can for a few minutes and then decided to hook it up and run a test on it.  After an initial 1cfm test we decided it was getting too late to continue testing, and called it quits until Monday.

 On Maine Day we set up our flow bench in the middle of Cloke Plaza, a small quad that is central to most of the engineering buildings.We spent the first hour and a half of our morning standing nearby and explaining our project to any passerby who happened to take an interest.  At 9am it was time for all the teams to head into Little Hall to give their Power Point presentations and we were second in line.  Our presentation went off without a hitch, and I think we were almost dead on for our 10 minute time limit.  The only real issue we had with the presentation was cramming a years worth of research, design and manufacturing into 10 minutes.  We had to talk fast, but still be clear.  Our team spent an hour and a half the night before going over the presentation to make sure we had everything down pat.  After all of the presentations were over we went back out to Cloke to do a quick demo of how we run our catch can tests, and then answered questions from parents and other visitors about the project.

The project has encompassed the whole array of the skills we've been taught as MET students.  We've completed print packages, created our own project timeline to manage our project, developed test standards, manufactured our own products and so much more.  Truly this has been an all encompassing engineering project that has kept us on our toes for the whole year.  We've worked through team disagreements, and failed parts; Delayed part shipments and tight scheduling; Late nights and Early Mornings.  At the end of it all, however, we completed a project that our whole team can be proud of.

It's been a great ride and our whole team hopes you've enjoyed following our project.

Sincerely,
The OAVS Capstone Team

One Week!

Good Evening!

Matt here again for the OAVS Capstone Team to update everyone on what we've been up to this past week!  With Maine Day a week away we've been a a busy group for sure.    Our first donated can has been tested and testing has started on our second catch can.  We have 4 donated catch cans plus our own design to test on our flow bench.  We've also spent more than a couple of hours working on our PowerPoint presentation for Maine Day (follow this link to learn more about what Maine Day is).  On top of what it says on the page that link sent you to, Maine Day is the day when all of the MET seniors will be presenting their capstones.  So if you'd like to come and see in person what our team has been up to all year save the date on May 1st!

 As I mentioned earlier we still need to build our own catch can design.  Well as I type this Forest is out in the shop working on our very own catch can design.  For our can we went with a design that we hadn't seen in any of our donated cans.  Most of the catch cans that we've seen use some kind of filter media to pull oil out of the PCV line by impingement.  For our can we decided to go with a cyclone design.  The basic principal of this can is that we introduce the air tangentially into the cyclone chamber of the can, and in turn the heavier particles will be thrown to the outside walls of the can and drip down into the reservoir at the bottom.  This is a vastly different route than our donated cans have gone for oil removal and we're hoping it pays off!!!

Troubleshooting and our Next Log Book

Hello again!

It's Matt here from the OAVS group to update you on what we've been doing lately.  Since our last blog post our team has been going steady trying to get ready for our final presentation of our project on Maine Day.  The whole team has been doing at least some form of CAD work.  Jon has finished the electrical schematic of our DAQ, and we've updated the 3D models of the DAQ and the flow bench.  We've also done a large amount of troubleshooting with the flow bench trying to get everything ready to get some data from cans.  We've now got an inline tap for a pressure sensor that will be hooked up downstream from our catch can so that we'll be able to take the differential pressure caused by the catch can.  We've also created a catch tank to hold all the oil that actually makes it through our catch can models, or as Forest so eloquently put it "a catch can to catch what our catch can can't catch".  The print package for our own catch can is printed off and being turned in with our current log book as well.

We've run into several hiccups in getting ready to test the cans.  Our flow sensor ended up getting saturated with our test fluid.  Even after drying the sensor out and Forest taking the sensor home to bake it, the sensor still wouldn't work.  Yesterday while also working on our log book the team got together and worked on troubleshooting reasons we weren't getting signal out from one of our sensors.  This lead us to finding a broken wire in part of the wiring harness for the DAQ.

As far as web presence is concerned our University of Maine page has 850+ views at this point, we're hoping we'll see 1,000 views before Maine Day.  Our blog has approximately 670 views, and hopefully we'll see more now that the blogs design is looking a little more crisp and looks more professional than it has in the past.  If any of our reader's want to see Youtube videos of what we've been up to, you should check that out on our University of Maine webpage.

If you guys like what we're doing leave a comment on some of the posts, or if you're on Google+, +1 us and share our posts with your friends who might be interested in seeing what seniors at the University of Maine can do!

Until next Time!

New Blog Design And More Updates!

Good evening, catch can fans!

It's Matt here again with another update on the OAVS capstone team project.  In case you haven't noticed our blog has a new look to it.  I decided that the old layout was a little too dark, and didn't look quite as polished as it could, so I spent a few hours figuring things out last week and tidied it up.  Among the additions is a slideshow on the right hand of the page which is linked to our Picasa/Google+ photo album.  I've traded in the long winded description of our project for a simple link to our capstone team page on the University of Maine team page, but enough with the website.  You're reading this because you want to know what the progress is on the project.  Well the team is steady creating CAD models for everything that doesn't already have one.  Jon is working on the wiring diagram for the data acquisition system, and Forest is putting the finishing touches on our very own catch can design. Dan is designing a housing for some of the wiring that's inside the data acquisition and I've been focusing heavily on all things web related as well as getting the word out about our project.  We have a 3D .pdf file of revision A of our catch can, but I'm currently fighting with getting it embedded into a blog post, so I will make sure to add that in our next update if I figure it out!

Until Next Time!

7 Weeks Until the Deadline!

Good Evening Everybody!

It's Matt here checking back in to let everyone know how our capstone has progressed since our last update.  My apologies for leaving our loyal viewers hanging the past couple of weeks, we've been back and forth on reassessing what we're up to and have hashed out a plan for the rest of the semester!

As it stands right now Forest and I will be working on developing the design of our catch can at the same time that Dan and Jon are testing our donated cans.  We've sketched out some preliminary drawings of what we think will work for our can, and Forest and I will be doing the math to back up our theories.  Our bench needs a little bit of tidying up, but once that's completed Jon and Dan will be running the flow bench and pulling numbers.  

By the end of this semester we plan to have all of our donated cans tested and compared, as well as have a prototype can of our own which we'll have tested and compared to the donated cans.  Stay tuned for more exciting updates!

Winter Break Hours, Flow Bench Progress, and Catch Can Design for Spring Semester!

Good Evening Catch Can Fans!

                

It’s Matt here again to keep all of our loyal fans out there up to date on how our project is going!  This past week Dan and I have taken measurements on several of the catch cans we have on hand and have begun creating 3D models of them for quick reference when we’re not in close proximity of the cans themselves.  We’ve also turned in our logbook this past week and after we tallied our time from winter break we counted up 427 total hours since the end of last semester, and we’re not slowing down now that the semester is upon us.  Our flow bench should be completed and ready for our first round of testing by this weekend.  This will be a huge milestone for our group, and allow us to really get into the meat of our capstone project.

For the design portion of our capstone project we’ve decided to take an individual approach to catch can design.  Realizing that between the four of us we won’t be able to come to a consensus on what we want for features in a catch can, we’re splitting up the design process and everyone is going to come up with a design of their choosing.  Once all the catch cans are designed we’ll start prototyping them and hopefully be able to complete a full round of testing on them and see which one works the best.  By splitting up the catch can designs we’ll get four unique looks at what a catch can could look like, and what the most effective systems for oil particulate removal end up being.  I don’t know about you guys but I’m excited to tear into some design work.

For those of you who’ve been keeping up with the project from the beginning, thanks for the interest!  For the people who’ve just recently found out about what we’re working, thanks for the interest!  And to both sets of people, tell your friends about what the MET’s over at the University of Maine are working on!

1-29-2013

Hey everybody, it’s Matt here again.

This past week the whole team has been busy working on getting the flow bench together so we can begin the testing phase of our project. A little over a week ago Dan and I went to Home Depot and Lowes to solicit for donations that would help us complete our flow bench. Though we weren’t able to get 100% of the materials we needed donated, both companies were very generous with the donations they made. Home Depot donated Oak Hardwood plywood, and Lowes donated a gallon of Bar Topper which we’ll be using for a finish on the top of the work bench. This week we managed to cut out all of the plywood for the bench as well as get several coats of polyurethane onto the panels. Our first attempt at creating the bench top ended up having some issues, so Forest and Jon worked on setting up a new bench top and burning some new sponsor tiles. The flow bench should be coming to fruition fairly soon, so keep an eye on the blog, and I or one of the team members will be keeping all of our readers posted.

Remember to check out our web page, and our Picasa photo album to see what we’ve been up to!