Introduction to Engineering Design: Book 11, 3rd Edition; Engineering Skills and Quadcopter Missions

This book is the third edition of the eBook edition of the eleventh text in this series: Introduction to Engineering Design. Jim Dally, working with College House Enterprises, LLC and faculty members in the Keystone Program within the Clark School of Engineering, has prepared ten previous textbooks in this series--a new one almost every 18 months. These books are written for the first-year engineering students of the University of Maryland at College Park, the University of Nevada at Reno and the University of California at Irvine. This version dealing with Quadcopter Missions has been prepared for the University of California at Irvine. The design, build and testing of a hovercraft model, described in Book 9, was such an interesting and challenging project that it was used for twelve semesters with approximately 8,000 students at the University of Maryland and is still being used at the University of Nevada at Reno. A different new project, described in the tenth book in the series, is an autonomous Over Sand Vehicle (OSV), which was an easy model to build, because of the extensive amount of suitable hardware that is commercially available online for modest cost. The more significant challenge was to adapt the OSV to effectively respond to coordinate information provided by the instructors at nearly real time, navigating over a sand filled arena, and to perform the assigned task after reaching the target. This eleventh book in the series covers the design and build of a quadcopter as well as many other topics offered to first year students in an introductory course. Near the end of the first quarter a student operator flies the quadcopter under radio control (RC) and competes in a race involving maneuvers through two closely spaced pylons. During the second quarter, the design teams fly their quadcopter under radio control, but deliver cargo to specific sites under autonomous control. PROCESS AND CONTENT The procedure followed in offering a design experience to first or second year engineering students is to: - Teach the class in moderate size sections, although this goal is more difficult in view of the significant increase in engineering enrollment in the past five years. - Divide the class into product development teams with six or eight members per team. - Assign a project entailing the development of a prototype that will require the entire semester. - All student teams develop the same product--this year it is a model of an OSV. - In the product realization process, the students:  Design  Manufacture or procure parts for the prototype  Assemble the prototype  Test and evaluate the prototype - In developing the prototype, the students have the opportunity to learn:  Communication skills  Team building skills  Engineering graphics  Software applications including CAD  Design methods and procedures The textbook is used to support students for two quarters involving two related projects involving a quadcopter. Some of the material may be covered in lecture, recitation or in a computer laboratory or a model shop. Additional material is covered with reading assignments. In other instances, the students use the text as a reference document for independent study.