SandStill
MIT 2.009: The Product Engineering Process
September - December 2022
For my MechE capstone class fall 2022, my team of 15 students and I developed a safe disc sander; the sander would prevent injury by detecting human touch through capacitive sensing and immediately stopping the rotation of the disc. In our final presentation, we demonstrated that the sander stopped in 80 ms, which is less than human reaction time! This was an incredibly rewarding culmination of the semester.
To assist in constructing of the sander, I fabricated the disc itself, designing it to be lightweight to halt quickly, but still rigid enough that pressing against it while sanding wouldn't deform it. I also helped construct the internal frame of the sander, integrate components, and refine the external housing.
As a team "Yoda" officer, it was my job to enhance teamwork, communication, and morale. I organized social and working sessions, offered support to teammates, and helped organize weekly meetings. I always tried to bring an energy to our team, and I could not be more thankful for my fantastic teammates. I had such a great experience in the class thanks to them!
In the first video below, I introduce our initial idea to our class in October, then the second video is our final presentation two months later. Scroll to 11:15 for the Gold Team intro, and to 14:30 for our presentation -- see the sander stop in real time! It stopped so fast that you can hear it stop before the video catches it visually.