MECH 498 Interdisciplinary Design Project I

Fall 2019

Instructor: Prof. Tim Lee, MC211, tim.lee@mcgill.ca

Office hours: Tues and Thurs 10:00 am - 11:00 pm & 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Wed 1:30 pm - 4:00 pm
Textbook: Mechanical Engineering Design by Shigley and Mischke (recommended)

GRADING POLICY
Project selection and approval (due 11:00 am, Tues., Sept. 17)
Preproposal (due 11:00 am, Tues., Sept 24) 15%
Two (group) progress reports & meetings (weeks of Oct. 21 and Nov. 11) 30%
(Group) Design Report (due 3:00 pm, Tues., December 3) 55%
Overall layout and clarity of the report 10 points
Design considerations 35 points
Proposed mechanism(s) 10 points
Detailed design considerations 20 points
Components selection and documentation 5 points
Design drawings 10 points

NOTES:
1. Design project:
Option I: Individual design project (up to 2 student per group)
● Students are encouraged to contact ME faculty members for potential design
project(s).
● CFD and theoretical-oriented design projects will not be accepted.
● Verbal or email approval of the potential design project(s) before September
17 is required.

Option II: Group design project (up to 4 students per group)

● Design project is related to Terrafugia TF-X hybrid VTOL flyable car.
● More details will be provided by the course instructor.
● Students need select their own group members.

2. Preproposal:
● The preproposal should be as detailed as possible (no less than 10 1.5-line-spaced pages).
● The preproposal format should follow the guides of design report write-up.
● Conceptual design drawings done by SolidWorks, ProE and/or AutoCAD software are
required.

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3. Design review and progress report:
● Two group or individual meetings and progress reports are required.
● Each meeting should last about 20 minutes and will account for 15% of the final mark.
● Students need to sign up for the meetings during the week of Oct. 7.
● A three-page mini-progress report plus the pdf file are required for each meeting.
● Grading scheme (15 points each):
■ Missed meeting 0%
■ No progress 0%
■ Insufficient progress 7.5 points
■ Sufficient progress 15 points

4. Final design report:

● pdf file only.
● Refer to the design considerations listed in the guidelines for design report write-up.
● No fabrication or construction is required.
● No marks will be given to designs adopted from commercially available mechanisms or
patents.
● Final individual design project grade will be determined by Prof. Lee with the inputs
from project supervisor.
● Students are required to submit their final design report to their project supervisor(s)
for evaluation.

5. For preproposal and final report, a 10% deduction will be given to every unexcused one-
hour delay.

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 MECH 498 Guidelines for design report write-up

1. TITLE PAGE
The title page should include the title of the course and the design project, names of the
students and group leader, date, names of the course instructor, and Department and
University.

2. ABSTRACT (1 page)
The abstract is a brief statement or summary of the essential thoughts/findings of the report.

3. TABLE OF CONTENTS (1-2 pages)

In this section, the layout of the presentation of the report, and lists of figures/photos and
tables are given.

4. INTRODUCTION (less than 5 pages)

A brief review of the importance, application, and so on of the project is needed. The review
should include

(a) What has been completed?

(b) What are the results?
(c) What needs to be completed yet?
(d) Based on the work completed, what changes need to be made to the original plan?

Detailed solutions for each of these questions should be discussed and presented in a
professional format. This section should end with a brief discussion of the anticipated
contributions from your work.

5. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS (30 to 40 pages)

In this section, the details of the proposed design mechanism, the specifications of the
project/target, the assumptions made, and the details of the machine components and
materials selected are discussed.

Photocopies of the commercial components are also needed to be included. Special emphasis
should be given to the selection of the mechanical components/elements, stress and failure
calculation, manufacturing considerations, and the design of the integrated mechanical
mechanism. Detailed SolidWorks, Pro E and/or AutoCAD design drawings should also be
included in this section. Cost estimation should also be included.

Commercially available “mechanisms” are greatly encouraged to be included in the report as

alternative design options.

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6. CONCLUSIONS (less than 5 pages)
Conclusions and recommendations are the most important part of this section. The conclusion
should briefly summarize the entire report, including the major achievements (as well as the
drawbacks), and the changes need to be made to the original plan, and the new investigations
should be added to the original plan. Suggestions for the continuation of this project also need
to be mentioned.

7. REFERENCES
A list of references including books, magazines, and journals that were used directly in the
preparation of this report should be included here.

8. APPENDIX (no page limit)

Photocopies/quotes of the commercial components, alternative (conceptual) design
mechanism, etc.

Notes: (1) The project report should be 1.5 line-spaced and single-sided only.

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 Information related to group design project

Design the rotor tilting, blade deployment and retracting mechanisms of

Terrafugia TF-X VTOL roadable airplane (detailed requirements to be discussed in
person)

TF-X hybrid VTOL flyable car

Some related information:

1 Vertical flight is a hot topic (Aviation Week & Space Technology 7/2/2018)
2. Bell advances Valor’s development (Aviation Week & Space Technology 7/2/2018)
3. Karem’s eVTOL shows way for Uber to meet its goals (Aviation Week & Space Technology
6/4/2018)

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