In addition to the ME 481 Senior Capstone class, there are six design courses required of all Mechanical Engineering majors. Three of those courses participate in Design Day. For the complete competition schedules, please see the Design Day Booklet.

In ME 371 Mechanical Design I students are required to design and manufacture mechanisms that incorporate at least one linkage, one gear set and one cam-follower combination.

These projects are on display during Design Day from 9:00 until noon in the Ballroom, Second Floor of the MSU Union. The team with the best design, as voted on by pre-collegiate visitors, is awarded the Sparty Plaque.

In ME 471 Mechanical Design II students were asked to design and build a prototype apparatus for a vertical lift. The lift is representative of a device that could be used to lift people for tasks like changing lightbulbs in a gymnasium. Because of the limitations of testing on Design Day, testing will be done on a small scale model.

The competition is held in the Ballroom, Second floor of the MSU Union from 9:00 until 11:06. The winning team receives the Leonardo da Vinci Machine Design Award. Please see the Design Day Booklet for information on the competition schedule.

The ME 412 Heat Transfer Laboratory project involves looking at efficient ways of converting solar energy into heated air that will then provide buoyancy to lift a payload.  The project team is to design, analyze, build, and test a boiler fueled by an air flow heat gun. A 400 ml beaker must fit inside or on top of the device and the objective is to deliver energy to the water in the beaker with the air gun a minimum of 6 inches away from the beaker. The device will be judged on the basis of the energy delivered to a beaker of water, the mass of the device, and its cost. The device as assembled must fit inside a cardboard box of dimension 14”x 14”x 12”

This competition takes place in the Ballroom, Second Floor of the MSU Union from 9:00 until 11:15 on Design Day. Please see the Design Day Booklet for information on the competition schedule.