The landfills are full! We’re about to be up to our ears in trash! The world needs a better trash compactor and we need you to design it. Our marketing group thinks we can sell a home-model trash compactor at a good profit provided that you can design a simple and inexpensive one. They would like it to be quiet, compact and safe. It can either be manually powered or motorized but manual is preferred to keep cost down.

    We want some creative preliminary designs which are potentially superior to any that might now be on the market. The section titled A Design Process in Chapter 1 will help you to get started and guide you to potential solutions. Please read it carefully. (It really works!). Also read Chapter 18 for some additional insight into the design process.

    The only constraints imposed on the problem are that the device must be stable, effective and safe to the operator. Full joints are preferred to half joints and simplicity is the mark of good design. A linkage solution with manual or powered input is desired.

    You must follow the Design Process to fully define and constrain the problem. You must do Background Research into the problem and any existing solutions. You must create a general Goal Statement. You must generate a list of at least 15 Task Specifications. As with any design problem, there is an infinity of solutions possible. You are expected to come up with one solution which will work. To do so you will have to try out many alternate designs and iterate to your 'best' solution. You should expect to typically go through at least ten iterations before arriving at an acceptable one.

    There will not be a need for extensive analysis in this project as it is a preliminary design concept study. However you are expected to do a "first order analysis" to determine the feasibility of your design. This must include, at a minimum, analysis of the degree of freedom of your design, its Grashof condition (if applicable), the input force or torque required over the range of motion, the minimum transmission angles, the mechanical advantage, and any other parameters you think important. You must also do a stability analysis of your design in all relevant positions to ensure that it will not tip over under operation. To do this you will need to use the skills you learned in your prior statics course (ES 2501) involving force and moment analysis.

    You are also required to document your solution in a professional engineering report which adheres to the Project Report Specifications document supplied. (Ask for a copy if you don’t yet have one.) This report will document the process by which you iterated to your final design as well as document the design. Do not just describe the final result. Rather show me how you arrived at it, including the failures encountered along the way. This will demonstrate to me that you understand the engineering concepts and the relevant course material. A working cardboard model of at least one plane (one side) of your design is required.

Some suggestions to get you started:

1. Do research before trying to solve the problem! Don't 'shoot from the hip'. Avoid BFI (Brute Force and Ignorance). Engineer it.

2. Try to find information on existing products of a similar nature.

3. Investigate the user's needs and abilities (human factors). Interview potential users.

4. Mr. Hrones and Mr. Nelson might help.

5. Program Fourbar might also.

6. Cardboard models make designing much easier.

IMPORTANT! IMPORTANT!