Design Projects
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The Formula SAE car competing at Hockenheim, Germany |
Facilities
This laboratory provides a practical workspace to complement the theoretical teaching of Design. It is a facility in which students can design and construct mechanisms and test rigs for their courses, projects and thesis work. The laboratory’s main features include:
- A design studio incorporating a catalogue library and workstations where students are able to work from the conceptual planning through to the modelling and simulation stages and design review.
- A workshop featuring spacious benches, a comprehensive suite of hand tools and some machine tools for hands-on use by students and researchers.
- Semi-permanent floor-space is dedicated to both teaching and research activities such as the Formula SAE car and the Agricultural Robotics projects. Temporary floor-space is also used by activities like the annual Warman “Design and Build” competition.
Research Areas
Current long-term research areas include:
- Autonomous Agricultural Vehicles for fruit-picking and the cultivation, seeding and harvesting of broad-acre crops.
- An experimental nut processing factory where Macadamia nuts are sorted, dried and cleaved to help maximise the yield of profitable whole kernels.
- A Drop Tower to measure the strength of composite materials and structures for use in the aerospace industry.
Teaching
The Design Projects Laboratory is the home within the School of several early year Design courses, most notably ENGG1000 Engineering Design and Innovation course. In Mech Eng the course consists of two main components; Design Hardware and the Warman Competition.
In the Design Hardware subject students are required to handle and identify examples of the basic elements involved in mechanical design - from the very simple components (fasteners, gears, threads etc) to the more complex mechanisms (fluid couplings, clutches, brakes etc). Such an experience is designed to broaden the students’ knowledge of the arsenal of materials and components available to them when engaging in project work in later years.
The most resource-intensive project each year is the Warman Design and Build Competition which has been run in Australasian Universities since 1988. The competition provides a project-based problem-solving experience for teams of up to four first-year students. Around 2000 students from 20 Universities across Australia and New Zealand participate first at a campus level with the best performers from each University then competing in the final at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum in September. The competition’s main focus is on educational issues and identifying and encouraging the designers of the future.
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| Students building and testing their machines for the annual Warman Design and Build Competition | |
The prestige occupant of the Design Projects Laboratory is the School’s Formula SAE Redback Racing Team. Formula SAE is an extra-curricular competition sponsored by the University and several large corporations. The intent of the Formula SAE is to focus on being an aid to the education of engineering students by providing a real world experience of: design; working in teams; working to schedules; applying computer analysis, design and simulation tools; establishing targets and costing a product. The goal is to design, build and race a small open-wheeled racing car.
An all-new car is required each year which places a premium on the organisation within a team. About 25 universities from within Australia and another 5 or so teams from Asia, Europe and the US compete at the annual competition in Melbourne. Since the Australasian competition’s inception in 2000, the UNSW Team based in the Design Projects Laboratory has been highly successful, accumulating some twenty trophies spread across the various events and placing on the podium in most competitions.
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| Students laying-out powertrain components for a Formula SAE car |
A Formula SAE car under construction: optimising the ergonomics! |