13th Annual School of Science,
Engineering, and Health Symposium
Engineering IPC Posters
April 29, 2016 Better Briquettes
Giuliana Angione and Samuel Stiffler
Much of Africa’s natural forest resources are being harvested at alarming and unsustainable rates. This
deforestation is largely due to the high demand for wood and charcoal to meet the regular energy requirements of
many developing countries. Our project aims to develop and improve biofuel briquetting processes that use
abundant agricultural waste products instead of wood and charcoal so that they may be implemented in developing
countries. Our partner, Open Door Development (ODD), located in Burkina Faso, has been a resource for us in
gathering information on the materials available and the local needs of their area. We hope to create a briquette
press, viable recipes, and briquetting instructions that can be tested and utilized by ODD. If ODD can successfully
replicate our processes, we can expand our efforts to create a business plan that entrepreneurs can utilize to also
begin manufacturing biofuel briquettes as a marketable alternative to wood and charcoal. We have recently
completed our design of the press and have been optimizing multiple recipes made from corn starch and water with
combinations of rice hulls, peanut hulls, and sawdust. We have yet to conduct quantitative studies on the exact
measure of heat produced by these ingredients, but we have confirmed that each is capable of burning to produce
heat and useful for the creation of structurally stable briquettes given the proper binding forces.
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Cumberland Pointe Futsal Court Project
Jacob Artuso, Peter Burt and Emily Quatrale
The Cumberland Pointe Futsal Court Project hopes to bring the Light of Christ to a mainly Muslim community in
the Cumberland Pointe Apartment complex in Mechanicsburg, PA through the sport of soccer. The soccer team,
Walaalos United, was founded by Daniel Thompson of Aroma Missions in 2011. The soccer team has helped the
young boys in the community come together and work toward a common goal of playing the best soccer possible
while learning many life lessons. The boys currently have to walk a few miles to get to their current playing space,
which initiated a project by Aroma Missions and the Collaboratory to build a soccer field on the grounds of the
apartment complex where the playters of Walaalos United live. The futsal court will be built in a space that is
currently occupied by an old volleyball court and a small basketball court. The Collaboratory project team has done
surveying of the site, and developed multiple options of court size and construction materials for the client to
choose from. The project team is also developing the paperwork necessary to apply for a building permit for the
court.
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Energy Monitoring and Management System
Seth Barr, Austin Kratz, Karine Moussa, Nathaniel Pardoe, Paul Tajiri and Michael Zigarelli
The Energy Monitoring and Management System facilitates access to electric power in regions with limited energy
by increasing energy conservation and education. Our solution consists of a meter which allocates a configurable
daily energy limit per facility, and a display that provides practical information to the user reporting how much
energy they have used or have left before power is automatically cut off until the next day.
The current version of our system has successfully been installed in multiple facilities in Burkina Faso and
Zimbabwe. We are in the process of a major update to support adding function modules which requires a new
enclosure and SPI communication between boards. Work is progressing on one of the first modules for wireless
communication between systems. Future modules will allow us to support both a pay-as-you-go version of the
meter as well as remote administration by a small business energy provider.
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13th Annual School of Science,
Engineering, and Health Symposium
Engineering IPC Posters
April 29, 2016 Mobility Tricycle Project - Drive Shaft Redesign
Daniel Barrett and Matthew Tomasetti
The Mobility Tricycle team is currently focused on a variety of improvements to the design of the electric and
hand-powered tricycles in order to deliver an effective mobility device to aid persons living with disabilities in
Mahadaga, Burkina Faso. One area of concern involves the drive train of the electric tricycle where two steel
mating components experience rapid wear as the tricycle is used. The wear, in turn shortens the operating life of
the drive system and ultimately the tricycle. To reduce wear, the Drive Shaft Redesign sub-team has developed a
number of design improvements which have effectively altered the mechanical properties of the failing
components. Preliminary results suggest that these improvements do slow wear, but recent test data is not precise
or accurate enough to make a definitive conclusion. With regard to this, the sub-team has developed two test
procedures involving both quantitative and qualitative analysis that are expected to produce data that will lead
towards a definitive conclusion.
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PumpMinder
Shawn Bordner, Chad Brubaker, Lydia Goodwin, John Harro, Sandra Snozzi Solther
To enable clean water access to be sustainable, a method of measuring water use for sales is required. The
PumpMinder is a electronic device designed to accurately measure water usage in order to promote honesty
between the water-drawing citizens and the designated pump manager. The PumpMinder monitors the presence of
water in the nozzle of a hand pump and displays the amount of time water has been flowing. The pump manager is
then able to read the displayed information and fairly determine the cost for water access. This creates the revenue
needed to maintain the hand pump during its lifetime and provides clean water to the community without the need
for external organizational support.
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Bridges to Prosperity Design Manual
Kevin Breisch, Zachary Engle, Sean McCormick and Caleb Stevens
This project's main goal is to enhance the existing Bridges to Prosperity Cable-Suspended Bridge design manual.
Currently, the manual takes a very prescriptive approach to designing bridges. As a result, students can work
through the entire manual and not understand some of the concepts of engineering that are used. The focus of this
project is to enhance the educational value of the manual while still providing an efficient document.
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Aeroponics: A Sustainable Alternative to Traditional Agriculture
Matthew Brenneman, Georgia Ernst and Erin Sharkey
We believe that all people should have affordable access to proper nutrition. The Aeroponics Project team has
worked to design a sustainable growing system that allows users to grow nutrient-rich vegetables year-round in
arid climates. The project is intended to use space, water, and materials efficiently to reduce waste and cost.
Although the final product is inspired by existing aeroponic technology, it uses elements of other aquaponic
technologies in order to meet nutrient needs of the plants. In addition to the physical system, the Aeroponics
Project explores the process of growing plants in nontraditional mediums with nontraditional nutrient sources. The
end product is intended for use by Open Door Development in Burkina Faso.
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13th Annual School of Science,
Engineering, and Health Symposium
Engineering IPC Posters
April 29, 2016 Cycle Advancements for Rugged Terrain - Universal Hitch
Jonathan Bright and Alexander Roth
The goal of the CART project is to create new uses for the small motorcycles found in developing countries. As a
primary source of transportation, these motorcycles are often overloaded and safety is compromised. By
developing a series of attachments for these motorcycles, we hope to increase the utility of the motorcycles while
reducing the risk associated with using them to transport goods. The first step in this process was to develop a hitch
that can be attached to many different types of small motorcycles. Different designs were considered and one was
selected to be further developed. A prototype of our hitch has been built and is currently in the testing phase.
Preliminary results indicate that this hitch design works within our desired design parameters. Testing included
fitting the hitch to our motorcycle and using it to attach a small trailer. Riding tests were conducted in order to
verify an acceptable range of motion and performance under loading. After testing is finished and we have arrived
at a final design, we plan to distribute several prototypes to Collaboratory partners in developing countries where
they will be field tested in order to provide for further improvements. In the future, we also hope to design a trailer
with a braking system that is made to work with our hitch.
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Research and Design of Prosthetic Lower Limb Components
Kaleb Burch, Ashley Hah Chien Vern and Luke Redcay
BioSTEP (Striding Towards Excellence in Prostheses) is a prosthetics group working within the Collaboratory to
develop a low-cost prosthesis design that can be locally manufactured at a children's hospital in Kijabe, Kenya.
Within BioSTEP, the "Lower Limb Components" division of the BioSTEP project includes the foot, shank (lower
leg), and ankle components. Each component was designed with two goals in mind: simple manufacturing and
high quality. The designs for each of these components represent compromise between simplicity and high
functionality, but in the end, we believe each component -foot, shank, and ankle- will work together to provide a
high quality, low-cost prosthesis to someone in need.
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VWOS, Willage Water Ozonation System
Elisabeth Chang and Luke Morrissey
Village Water Ozonation System (VWOS) aims to use filtration and ozonation methods to provide potable water at
an affordable cost. Operating as a batch system, non-potable water is filtered through a series of activated carbon
filters, ranging in size from 50 microns to 0.5 microns, and then shocked with ozone to destroy any remaining
bacteria in the water. The cleanliness of the water is validated using oxidation-reduction potential (ORP). Tests on
the system focus on optimizing the time needed to reach a designated ORP of 750 mV. The VWOS team has spent
this year preparing to install a batch system in Oaxaca, Mexico. The system will serve a community center and will
be paired with a co-op plan to further enhance the area's economy.
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Economic Wheel Design for Water Transportation Cart - Africa Wash and Disability Study
Joshua Charney, Devin Esch and Jacob Younger
People with disabilities may have difficulty carrying and using jerrycans for water transportation. We are
developing wheeled water carts to carry jerrycans. The principle drawback of our original design was the cost of
the bicycle wheels and tires used for the carts, so our project sought to develop a more economic wheel design.
Our new design uses more cost effective materials, namely rebar and flat bar, to produce carts that will be
affordable to our target users.
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MPWD - Design of Mast Superstructure
Tyler Collier, Andrew Dunmire, Damaris Gehman and John Hannon
The goal of this project is currently developing and refining an efficient well-drilling system for a well drilling
team in Burkina Faso, a small country in Western Africa. Our client is Matt Walsh, an SIM missionary and the
founder of Open Door Development in Burkina Faso. The well drilling system was originally manual in nature,
requiring an entire team to repeatedly hoist and drop a heavy steel bit. To ease the exertion of manual drilling, last
year a mechanized system was produced. Continued refining of this system includes the design of a new mast
superstructure to replace the current tripod.
13th Annual School of Science,
Engineering, and Health Symposium
Engineering IPC Posters
April 29, 2016 .
FaithConnect: Connecting Churches through Technology
Joshua Conrady and Keith Wei Luen Lim
FaithConnect is a project aimed at connecting churches to their congregations and other charitable organizations.
Currently, FaithConnect has taken on the task to create mobile applications for Android and iOS. This development
process is still in its early stages, so there is much room for creativity and idea-crafting. The project is currently
developing a prototype application which will be released and beta-tested by our clients. Apart from the mobile
development side of things, FaithConnect is also working on the last stages of developing a fully functional
website which will provide churches with the ability to create events, manage congregations, start study groups,
and more. All of this will be possible with the convenience and accessibility that makes technology such a blessing.
The projected date for the first release of this software is late 2016. This first release will be a minimal release to
select influential members of our client churches. After this, sequential releases will be scheduled in order to fulfill
the project goals as well as incrementally add features desired by our clients.
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WERCware Application Development and Shutoff Solution
Joseph Coshun and Matthew Bohn
Wireless Enabled Remote Co-Presence (WERCware) is a system developed to allow a single life coach or personal
assistant to remotely monitor and communicate with multiple participants who have cognitive or behavioral
challenges. The participant receiving services of this assistive communication technology wears a lanyardsuspended smart phone interfaced with various bio-sensors while in a job setting or living environment so as to
benefit from voluntary or automatic interventions when needed, as managed by the service provider.
The WERCware team is developing a mobile application that will monitor human stress level by analyzing a
combination of Voice Analysis (VA), brainwave monitoring (EEG) and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) signals.
The signals from external bio-sensors interfaced with the smartphone (StressAlyrter) will be processed by the
WERCware app to assess whether the human stress level of the participant has exceeded a critical threshold. The
app uses algorithms such as an artificial neural network (ANN) to analyze the signals in real time; if the critical
threshold has been exceeded, a Skype video call is automatically initiatied to the service provider.
A Shutoff subsystem is also being developed that will detect when the participant enters a confidential/private area
in order to automatically disable audio and video collection. Bluetooth beacons deployed in these private areas will
be detected by the smartphone, so as to suspend audio/video monitoring when entering these regions.
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Bio-Fuels: Seed Pressing
Tyler Criddle, Samuel Hsu, Hannah Martin and Bradley Sloop
The Bio-Fuels: Seed Pressing Project strives to create a process that provides clean, sustainable cooking oil to the
Messiah College dining hall. Our project believes in a local, student-run sunflower seed pressing process that also
cares for the earth. Highlights of our project this semester include developing a process to filter sunflower oil,
testing the perfomance of unrefined sunflower oil at high heat, and evaluating the economics of running a
sunflower seed pressing operation. Our poster provides an overview of the history and progression of the Seed
Pressing Project, and details about our current work.
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Mechanized Percussion Well Drilling
Dan Eckman, Althea Mavros and Greg Shirk
The goal of this project is currently developing and refining an efficient well-drilling system for a well drilling
team in Burkina Faso, a small country in Western Africa. Our client is Matt Walsh, an SIM missionary and the
founder of Open Door Development in Burkina. The well drilling system was originally manual in nature,
requiring a team of people to repeatedly hoist and drop a heavy steel bit. To ease the exertion of manual drilling,
last year we produced a mechanized system. Continued refining of this system includes improved temp casing
installation systems, implementation of bit attachments, production of a new steel superstructure, and a closer study
of drilling/bailing cycles.
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13th Annual School of Science,
Engineering, and Health Symposium
Engineering IPC Posters
April 29, 2016 Hollow Fiber Membrane (HFM) Million Gallon Filter Challenge
Nolan Goss and Frederic Warden
Sawyer filters, particularly the Sawyer PointONE Bucket Filter, have been used in over 70 countries to provide
household clean water solutions and reduce water borne-illnesses by up to 75% in households who use the filters.
Therefore the known life of the filter is essential. By knowing how long filters can be expected to last, a client as
well as the team will know approximately when filters need to be replaced in order to prevent fatalities and
sickness. The longevity of the membrane units is unknown in the field. Sawyer has promised users a life
expectancy of lasting several years and the capability of filtering at least 1 million gallons of water prior to failure.
Because they have not done testing to verify this, they are facing scrutiny and have asked the team to test this for
them. In order to test, a testing system needed to be designed. The system will need to run for 2.5 years in order for
1 million gallons of water to be filtered through each filter given the flow rate of 1 gallon per minute. The filters
will be periodically tested and the data will be submitted to Sawyer.
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3-D Printed Hand Prosthetic
Timothy Gover, Jessica Raboci and Jason Yoder
The goal of our project is to make hand prosthetics available to those who cannot afford them, especially children.
Children who are born with an upper limb deformity are not usually fitted with a prosthetic until they reach their
teens, due to expense, wear and tear, and the challenges of fitting on young children. Pediatric prosthetics can cost
upwards of $100,000 per device. This is completely unfeasible for the average family, even here in the USA.
The "Raptor Hand" project (named for the open source files that form the foundation of our design) uses the
knowledge of Messiah College engineering students and the 3D printing capabilities of our department to custom
design and fabricate upper limb prostheses for families with children who would not otherwise have access to a
hand prosthesis. This year, our client has been a four year old girl from Philadelphia, PA. Our client's dream is to
be able to ride her Big Wheels tricycle, which she cannot do because she was born with no fingers on her right
hand. Our prosthetic hand is custom designed for the anatomy of our client's residual fingers and is 3D printed in
pink plastic, to her specifications.
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Affordable Sanitation
Kenton Grossnickle, Connor McGovern, Sydney Schandel and Duane Troyer
Worldwide billions of people lack access to safe sanitation facilities leading to disease and indignity. Although pit
latrines provide a low cost option for rural areas, their performance proves difficult in conditions of soil collapse.
Sandy soil conditions along with other factors cause collapse of the soil supporting a pit latrine there by wasting
the resources put into building the latrine and potentially harming latrine users. The Collaboratory along with
World Vision International is designing pit latrine liners that could prevent the described soil collapse. Other than
being technically feasible, the liners have to be cost competitive with currently available solutions such as brick
and mortar or concrete based latrine liners. The current solutions being designed and tested include a removable
liner made out of fiberglass, and non-removable liners such as ferrocement, burlapcrete, sand bags, and a rebar
cage wrapped with fabric. In addition to on campus testing, designed liners will be tested in Northern Ghana during
May 2016.
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13th Annual School of Science,
Engineering, and Health Symposium
Engineering IPC Posters
April 29, 2016 Rapid Low-Cost HIV Diagnostic Device
Daniel Haas and Brianne Roper
The majority of children with HIV are located in sub-Saharan Africa, yet most of the HIV research that is done is
based on research priorities identified by the developed world. In contrast, we have worked with our partner, Dr
Thumma of the Macha Research Centre in Zambia to identify two primary areas of HIV-1 research that are lacking
for the developing world: 1. Identifying timing of mother-to-child HIV-1 transmission and 2. reducing the time to
diagnosis for infants born to HIV+ mothers. The goal of this project is to design a diagnostic method to produce a
quantitative result for the presence of HIV-1 A/C in the blood of infants in a short time period (goal of under 30
minutes). This will allow our partner to use our method to elucidate the timing of HIV transmission from motherto-child in order to establish better prevention measures and to correctly diagnose infants more quickly, improving
their health outcomes. Thus far, our team has established foundational biomedical engineering capabilities at
Messiah College that did not exist previously, including PCR and fluorescent microscopy. We have also done
preliminary design and prototyping for a blood filtration system, a computational model of virus movement in the
blood, and DNA vector design for engineering of a protein probe for viral capture.
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WERCware Stress Alerting Technology
Ryan Hahn and Josh Thomas
Wireless Enabled Remote Co-Presence (WERCware) is a system developed to allow a single life coach or personal
assistant to remotely monitor and communicate with multiple participants who have cognitive or behavioral
challenges. The participant receiving services of this assistive communication technology wears a lanyardsuspended smart phone interfaced with various bio-sensors while in a job setting or living environment so as to
benefit from voluntary or automatic interventions when needed, as managed by the service provider.
The StressAlyrter element of WERCware is designed to enable automatic intervention through a call to the service
provider, triggered by detection of elevated human stress. The WERCware team has recently explored two
technologies for measuring human stress: Electroencephalography (EEG) and Voice Analysis (VA). EEG senses
the electrical impulses at the surface of a person's brain so as to identify corresponding emotions by algorithms
designed to process the brain waves. VA monitors characteristic changes in a person's voice frequencies so as to
predict stress via artificial intelligence processing with an 80-90% accuracy. The combination of EEG and VA
signals along with Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) previously researched will be transmitted by bluetooth or USB
to an Android smartphone for real-time processing to assess human stress level. An elevated stress status will
trigger an automatic call from the participant to the service provider, so as to acheive a beneficial intervention in
the situation.
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Breath of Life Tropical Oxygen Concentrator
Katie Heindel, Spencer Petersheim and Michael Smith
The Breath of Life project team has partnered with Macha Hospital in Zambia to meet the need for medical oxygen
at developing world hospitals situated in tropical climates. High humidity damages the zeolite particle beds in
pressure swing absorption oxygen concentrators causing premature failure. This drives up the cost of healthcare.
In a developing world context, moreover, the lack of ready access to parts and maintenance means that the failure
of an oxygen concentrator can also leave patients in respiratory distress without the oxygen they need to survive.
Our team is designing a dehumidifier that is attachable to the air intake of oxygen concentrators to remove
moisture from the air before it enters the machine. We are currently building a prototype that uses high voltage to
ionize the water droplets into hydrogen and oxygen.
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13th Annual School of Science,
Engineering, and Health Symposium
Engineering IPC Posters
April 29, 2016 BioSTEP: Transfemoral Prosthetic
Vy Ho, Lyndsy Shaubach and Daniel Yeisley
The need for prosthetic limbs throughout the world is inversly proportional with the availability of quality
prostheses. Countries that have the highest need have the least access due to the high cost of prosthetic devices.
Our team seeks to develop a highly functional, durable, and cost effective lower limb prosthetic that is
manufacturable in developing countries. Our particular focus is the socket, the part of the prosthetic that attaches to
the residual limb. The socket is the most important component in terms of patient comfort and likelihood of
persistent use of the prosthetic. Therefore, the development of a high comfort, high functioning and cost effective,
yet easily manufacturable socket is paramount.
In our design, we took into consideration materials available in developing countries and the advice of our partner,
Dr Shoemaker, who is a prosthetist working out of Carlisle. We chose to base our design on what is called a
"socketless suspension socket", which is a socket composed of four aluminum struts that are tightened around the
patient's residual limb via belts. This is the most viable design found that fits the criteria for a transfemoral
prostheses' socket that we have explored thus far because, unlike thermoplastics, most developing countries have
access to metalworking technologies and knowledge. Thus, the socketless socket seems to be the most comfortable
and effective non-thermoplastic based socket for manufacturing in developing countries at this time.
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Design and Implementation of a Demonstration System for Combined Generation of Power, Heat,
and Refrigeration
Ethan Jacoby, Timothy Mast and Nathan Musser
Messiah College recently installed a combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) facility in the center of
campus. Electric power generation plants are typically capable of converting only 30-50% of the thermal energy
supplied, whether by combustion or other means, to electric power. The balance of available thermal energy is
usually rejected as waste heat to the environment. CCHP technology serves the environment and lowers total
energy costs by capturing the waste thermal energy from an electric power plant and using it to drive heating and
refrigeration systems. The motivation and function of this innovative technology are not immediately intuitive,
particularly the translation of waste heat into refrigeration. This project has produced a functional model of a
CCHP system to demonstrate and educate the public about the concepts underlying CCHP technology. The model
uses heat exchangers to capture waste heat from the combustion exhaust stream of a 1500-watt gasoline powered
generator. The captured heat is used to make three products: hot air, hot water, and refrigeration. Refrigeration is
accomplished by an absorption refrigeration machine that is powered by heat rather than mechanical work input.
Each of the three products produced is associated with a user interface that can readily demonstrate the function
and use of CCHP technology.
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Basic Utility Vehicle (BUV) Firetruck
John Keeports and Jeffrey Weaver
Many rural areas in Africa lack sufficient firefighting equipment. In order to develop a solution for this need, the
Basic Utility Vehicle Firetruck team and the Institute for Affordable Transportation are working to design and
build a firefighting application for the current Basic Utility Vehicle model. Our add-on module would provide a
modern firefighting pump, hoses, nozzle, water tanks, and a foam additive solution to maximize fire suppression
capabilities. To make the application more versatile and cost effective, the addition of other functions, such as
irrigation and water transportation, are being considered.
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13th Annual School of Science,
Engineering, and Health Symposium
Engineering IPC Posters
April 29, 2016 Mobility Tricycle Project - Brake/Control Box Redesign
Cordell King
The Mobility Tricycle Project exists to provide transportation for those living with physical disabilities in Burkina
Faso by developing designs for hand-powered and electric tricycles. These tricycles are designed to be built locally
within Burkina Faso.
The electric tricycles design uses a hand operated lever to control both the speed and the braking. This lever is also
an important part of the braking system for the tricycle. This year, the Brake Control Team redesigned the braking
system including the control box which contains this lever and other components to provide for easier
manufacturing, reduction of cost, improved functionality, and improved control accessibility. Additionally, we
redesigned the brake bracket on the bottom of the tricycle to help with maintenance of the battery. The document
concerning the fabrication and assembly of the box and braking system were also finalized.
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Solar Africa EBI
Jessica Kline and Josiah Peck
In Zimbabwe, the national power grid cannot support the country's power needs. Their solution is to use “load
shedding” which imposes rolling blackouts for users lasting from 5 minutes to an entire day, occurring up to 40
times each week. Our current client, the Ekuphileni Bible Institute (EBI), regularly has power only during the
hours of 1-4AM. We have designed a solar photovoltaic (PV) system capable of powering their classrooms,
library, and computer lab. To support the on-going funding of this system, we have developed multiple design
options allowing EBI to configure the best system supported by available financial resources.
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Mobility Tricycle Project - Rear Axle Redesign
Joshua Kunkle and Daniel Vivolo
The mission of the Mobility Tricycle Project is to design electric and hand-powered tricycles for persons living
with disabilities in Burkina Faso, West Africa. In 2015, a frame design was developed in order to increase the life
of the axles that support the rear wheels of the tricycle. While the new design reduced premature axle wear, it
resulted in a wider frame that would not fit through many of the doorways in Burkina Faso. A new frame was
created which reduced the width of the tricycle significantly so that it would fit through most doorways. As a result
of this modification, interference between the rear wheels and the control boxes became an issue. New positions
for the control boxes had to be established to minimize interference, and to optimize control access for the user.
The new positions of the control boxes required modifications and additions to the tricycle frame; these
modifications are reflected in the final frame design.
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Biofuels: Burkina
Aaron Ladeau, Mayim Moore and Tyler Schell
The goal of the Biofuels: Burkina team is to implement a system in the village of Mahadaga, Burkina Faso so that
our client Matt Walsh and the people living in the village can increase the amount of time they can run their seed
threshers on diesel fuel. To achieve this goal, we need to determine necessary information about running a
stationary diesel engine off of a mixture of straight vegetable oil and diesel. We first must research what
percentage of vegetable oil mixed with diesel allows us to get the maximum power output from our engine, while
not putting too much wear on the engine's inner mechanics. In order to do this we have fitted the engine with a
dynomoter which is used to pick up the engines horsepower and rpm values so we can compare the engines output
from blend to blend. In addition, we are using digital imaging software to examine the wear on the inner piston
cylinder. With this information the team plans on building a two tank vegetable oil system where the engine will be
feed a specific blend of heated vegetable oil mixed with diesel fuel in order to decrease the amount of diesel fuel
needed to run the engine.
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13th Annual School of Science,
Engineering, and Health Symposium
Engineering IPC Posters
April 29, 2016 Harrisburg Energy Audit
Anders Laub and Michael Pasti
For the past 20 years, interior fluorescent lights in the Harrisburg Martin Luther King (MLK) City Government
Center have been operating in continuous 24/7 ON mode, costing the city more than necessary. Heating and
cooling in the building has also not been optimal, so that many office workers have chosen to use space heaters to
control temperature in their personal area. The MLK building administrator has been preparing to improve the
lighting system with automated control and more efficient bulbs. Thus, an energy audit was requested and
completed by this team with the goal of comparing lighting options, so as to show the annual energy usage and
monetary savings of replacing the existing fluorescent bulbs with more energy efficient LED bulbs throughout the
interior of the MLK building.
Our team found that significant energy savings would result from switching all the lights to energy efficient LED
bulbs. We modeled the entire building with the Trace 700 Energy Analysis software. Using the software, we were
able to modify the buildings lights and predict the potential for energy and monetary savings. The team also found
that savings could be acheived by eliminating some space heaters and/or having them on for shorter periods of
time. We presented the City Government Engineer with the Energy Audit Document describing our
recommendations. Future work in progress involves the design of a daylight harvesting circuit. This circuit can be
connected to any light in the building. Its purpose is to save energy by adjusting the LED brightness in response to
the natural daylight illumination coming through nearby windows.
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Mobility Trike Project - Front End Redesign
Daniel Loefstedt and Joshua Pardoe
The Mobility Tricycle Project designs electric and hand-powered tricycles for people living with physical
disabilities in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Most of the tricycle design has been carefully reviewed and optimized;
however, the front-end of the tricycle still needed a systematic redesign. In particular, the impact of the front-end
design on the handling of the tricycle is an area that would benefit from being extensively looked at. Tricycles
tested at Messiah College have had a tendency to veer to the right requiring a significant steering force to keep the
tricycle moving on a straight path. Last year, the front end redesign team was able to determine that the poor
handling was due, in part, to the unsymmetrical geometry of the bicycle fork used to support the front wheel of the
tricycle. To remedy this problem, a fork bending tool was developed to ensure that new forks are symmetrical
before being assembled onto the electric tricycle. This year, our group has done additional research and testing
revolving around the symmetry of used, unsymmetrical forks instead of new forks. We discovered an additional
symmetry issue involving the vertical symmetry of the fork, something we call the “paddle offset.” We were able
to develop a process that enabled us to eliminate the symmetry problems for all types of bicycle forks and provide
a tricycle that handles better.
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Solar Panama
Jonathan Lord and Spencer Lowman
In response to a request by Rio Missions, our team has designed a Solar PV system capable of providing power to a
small church in Bajo Grande, Panama. This church is critical to the community and currently depends upon a
generator to power the sound system and lights for services as well as support a cell phone charging station
provided as an outreach to the local populace. A shortfall in funding has resulted in a hold on construction.
However, the projected low cost of this system, $12,000, makes it a viable alternative for other clients with similar
needs.
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13th Annual School of Science,
Engineering, and Health Symposium
Engineering IPC Posters
April 29, 2016 Flight Tracking and Messaging Systems (FTMS): Communications Group
Hoang Nguyen and Michael Torres
Once outside radar range, small planes flying in remote locations must be tracked by alternative means.
Organizations focused on emergency relief, humanitarian development and missionary support need to follow such
flights, for reasons of safety and more. The Automatic Flight Following System (AFFS) owned by JAARS has
been safety tested and used extensively for this purpose but is no longer being used due to the emergence of newer
communications technologies. Thus, FTMS at Messiah College has agreed to work with stakeholder and avionics
expert Cary Cupka to redesign AFFS to include more advanced technology modes. This includes replacing the
existing Rabbit SBC in AFFS 1.0 with a new microprocessor capable of the same functions and open to further
expansion with an increased number of available programmable input/output pins. The Arduino Mega 2560 has
been selected as the best microcontroller option for the ACU. To streamline the process of understanding the AFFS
system as well as creating functional code, MagicDraw UML (Unified Modeling Language), a software modeling
tool will be used to model the overall system with design changes, and facilitate the ability to share details of the
system architecture with participating stakeholders.
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Woodcrest Bridge Project
Thien Nguyen and Mark Simpkins
The Woodcrest Bridge Team is partnering with Larson Design Group and Horst Construction to design a cablesuspended pedestrian bridge for a Christian campground in Ephrata Pennsylvania. The bridge will connect two
hiking paths at the campground and will serve as an iconic feature of the campground. From a design aspect, the
bridge will span 80 feet in total length, be supported by five tensioned cables, and will be elevated on steel I-beam
towers. Beneath the surface, the five tensioned cables will tie into two reinforced concrete anchors, while the Ibeam towers will sit on top of reinforced concrete blocks. We plan to have a finalized and approved bridge design
by the beginning of this Summer, enabling the construction of the bridge to begin as early as the Fall of 2016.
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Mobile Medical Clinic
Mickey Padovano
The Mobile Medical Clinic (MMC) was created with the goal of increasing the rate up checkups for cervical cancer
in Kenya by providing screenings for those who would otherwise have trouble seeing a doctor. In 2012, it was
estimated that 4,802 new cervical cancer cases are diagnosed and about 2,451 deaths occur annually. The MMC
will be delivered to Dala Development, a Christian healthcare organization working in near Kisumu in Kenya, to
serve those who do not have the ability to see another doctor. It is the goal of the MMC project to increase the
number of women getting regular checkups by 30% by taking regular trips to new villages.
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