Students Design, Test Mechanical Pill Crushers
ORONO — Six teams of UMaine mechanical engineering technology (MET) students who squared off for an unusual engineering Senior Design Competition recently found that sometimes simplicity is best.
The students, as part of their capstone projects, designed and built six distinctive pill-crushing devices to see which one might have commercial potential.
The annual exhibition of newly designed projects by MET seniors is an annual event with an eye toward creating something that helps people, according to Herb Crosby, professor of mechanical engineering technology, who organizes and oversees the projects for his students. The design presentations represent a year of student creativity in mechanical engineering technology.
The pill-crushing devices were designed to be used in homes, hospitals or nursing homes. A panel of nurses and professional engineers evaluated and graded the six pill crushers for noise, efficiency, ease of use and other characteristics that could help or hinder nurses or staff at residential institutions. The pill-crushing competition followed. After motorized or hand-powered grinders and choppers ran the gamut, the small, quiet little pulverizer with a small hand crank won the day.
The object of the pill crushers is to reduce pills to a dust to facilitate dissolving in liquids or food for people who have difficulty swallowing pills.
“The MET capstone projects in particular are often aligned to improve a specific product for handicapped individuals with limited mobility, loss of extremities, or a number of other various products designed to improve the quality of life for members of society,” says Ryan Keezer, the student whose wife suggested the pill crushers. “The capstone projects are what the MET program is all about.”
Crosby’s students determine their project at the beginning of the school year when they select a topic from the pool of ideas Crosby receives from the public and class members. Ideally, Crosby says, each project has a real-life client who can be consulted to help students understand the need.
“You have to think, ‘There must be a better way,’” says Crosby, whose hope is for his students not just to build something for a grade but to build something that works and has a real-world application.
Students agree.
“That act of providing a product which is designed to help others feels great and is very motivating, knowing that someone is excited to see what the teams create,” says Justin Hagelin, an MET senior in Crosby’s class. “It gives teams experience dealing with the consumers and users of its product, which is often the hardest obstacle to overcome in a design.”
If the projects help students gain a greater understanding of the world around them, all the better, adds Crosby. About the 2009-10 adaptive tricycles for landmine victims in Mozambique, for instance, Crosby says developing and testing the designs helped students put their own struggles in context. “We tend to feel sorry for ourselves,” he says. “Well, we have no problems at all.
“I think it speaks well of the students to pick something like this,” Crosby says of the humanitarian projects.
Crosby says the top tricycle design, for landmine victims in Mozambique, are about to be sent to aid groups there for production. Information about the “orange team’s” winning design is available on the MET website.
Detailed designs of some of the pill crushers and a list of prior year projects are listed on the mechanical engineering technology website.
Contact: Herb Crosby, (207) 581-2134; George Manlove, (207) 581-3756