Tanisha's Week 7/8 Poster Critique

 

In review of the "Human Performance Modeling for Fluid Power Systems Investigators" poster I find the strength to be more so in the written content and weaknesses to be in the model imagery and additional graphics. More specifically the content of the poster is well organized and intentional. In my experience of posters thus far, I did not find this poster having unnecessary verbiage. Furthermore the imagery was well purposed, however they appear unclear at first sight. Specifically the flow diagram beneath "What progress.." is stretched in a manner that makes the diagram difficult to read. It is great to see the flow of the progress, and I do not doubt that the presenters could effectively express their progress with reference to the diagram. However, I believe a poster should speak well of the work prior to presenters even saying anything. This diagram amongst the other images on the poster could have been sharper for better representation. Because I am working on a project that focuses on human factors, as does this poster, my interest was immediately captured within the title. Thusly, I did also understand the work of the project.

 

As for the research I am working on all is well. I am continuing to dive into the awesomeness of human factors engineering and the user-centered design process. I find it amazing that so many designs are implemented in this world for users that were not even considered in the design process. Hence the reason we have so many items on the shelf today that seem extremely complex to the average person, but of course the designer can operate them seamlessly. Thus far, I am infatuated with human factors as we continue to design and develop specifically for the restoration and regeneration of human body. The work that I am doing has certainly opened my eyes to elements of life I would have otherwise overlooked. So I am grateful for the experience.

Week 7/8 Blog Post

• Week 8 Blog Post: (Research Poster Review and Critique)

Project 3A.3: Human Performance Modeling and User Centered Design-Patient Transfer Device

• Identify strengths and weaknesses:
• Information is kept relevant to fluid power and hydraulics principles and the goals of the center.
• Addresses limitations, current progress, and techniques used
• Ideas for review:
• Content, did you get the point?
• The objective, method, and conclusive results were well detailed and demonstrated with pictorial descriptions.
• Title, was the title effective?
• Yes, the title was descriptive and captured the objective.
• Motivation, did it capture your interests?
• Since I am also currently working on the same device, it was very interesting to see where the project was a year ago, and the progress that has been made since.
• Layout, graphics and font
• The Layout of the poster was effective and included a good amount of graphics. The poster seemed a little wordy but once read, lent a lot of necessary information.

Week 7/8 – Miles

Research Poster Critique:

I decided to critique the Purdue Utility Project: Clutching Mechanisms poster, since it is built off the same vehicle as my project.

At first glance the poster is well organized and easy to read. The layout is arranged in a logical way; top to bottom for easy transitions. It is visually appealing, with strong use of color, graphics, and white space. No words are too small to read, and the table has shading to help keep each section separated.

As far as the content of the poster, it definitely gets the point across. The introduction, impact and goals sections are to the succinct but complete. You get the idea that they want to design a clutch to put on utility vehicles that they are building for people in remote areas of Cameroon. Content overall leaves nothing to the imagination, which is perfect.

The poster title: Purdue Utility Project: Clutching Mechanisms, perhaps leaves some people in the dark if they don’t know what the Purdue Utility Project is. But the University and Department are clearly visible so that was well done.

It may be that the project itself is so interesting, a basic utility vehicle for transportation in Cameroon, which causes the poster to capture your interest right away, but the poster is certainly presented well with an eye-grabbing BUV pictured top center. Of course, once the attention is there, the project sells itself with an innovative design and philanthropic purpose.

Overall, this was a great poster and can easily be used as an example of what a research poster should look like.

Project Update:

To remind everyone, I’m working on designing and fabricating a hydraulic system to attach to the BUV. I have selected a solution, which was to build the system from the component level, instead of the best alternative which would have been to rearrange the components of a log splitter, which has most of the same necessary components. I have ordered the parts, which is exciting. Hopefully they come in soon so I can start attempting a build. 

Week 6: Tanisha & Engineering

Hi guys, I'm a tad bit behind but this is me catching up! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their research experience as I am. The blog topic of this week certainly takes me down memory lane, reflecting even on my childhood. I have always been a person that is more than meets the eye, I'm always thinking and wondering about things. That being the case I was the child that hung out with my grandfather as he took things apart, repaired them (sometimes failing miserably), and putting them back together. I didn't realize my curiosities at such a young age would one day spawn into an interest and even love for engineering.

Though I was inquisitive about the nature of how things worked, I proclaimed pediatrics as my future career throughout grade school until my junior year of high school. It was in high school that I was introduced to engineering through the pre-engineering program, Project Lead the Way, which changed my mindset forever more. After much research in the midst of my senior design project, I decided I would dual major in computer and electrical engineering. After my second course in computer programming, I vowed to never do any form of coding again! It was just too tedious and my goodness was it boring! Well I laugh as I type that because I am currently spending a considerable portion of my time writing code. It is nearly inevitable in today's society with apps for everything.

Ultimately, I decided I wanted to be an engineer because I realized engineers are the coolest people on earth. Engineers get a thrill out of picking their complex, technical brains on behalf of some end user with a need. Long story short, I enjoy solving problems. Being able to see the solution in the midst of a problem is an amazing gift I have found joy in. While there are days I ask myself why I chose electrical engineering, I never question why I chose to forevermore be a problem solver. It is what I enjoy, thus it is what I do, making me who I am.

Week 7/8

To start critiquing this poster, let me first point out the large paragraphs and overall wordiness of the poster. It makes the poster hard to follow when it throws so much information at you. Perhaps by condensing the paragraphs to a few short and precise sentences the reader will be able to take more away from it. Other than that, I think this poster does a good job of explaining the graphics which helps with the overall flow of the information. The title is easy to find as well as the project investigators and sponsors.

Now for an update on my project. My sensor design has been approved and I have ordered the steel/parts necessary to construct it. Lately I have been in the machine shop trying my hand at machining which is a slow and grueling process but it is coming along. I am now machining my final piece of steel which happens to be the most intricate. Once I have completed machining the steel components, I can assembly my diabolical contraption and begin hooking up sensors to interface it with Matlab. Finally I will be able to take some data from my fluid compressibility sensor to determine the bulk modulus of different oil/gas mixtures.

Good luck to everyone on their projects!
Alek

Weeks 7 & 8: It's Never too Late

Hey everyone! Back with another (late) update of my research progress.

Sorry Alyssa!

Today I had the opportunity to review a poster presentation of my own research project. It gave me an interesting, somewhat external, perspective of it. Below is said poster summarizing the progress made by my research mentors Dr. Eric Barth and Anna Winkelmann.

Controlled Stirling Thermocompressor

Fortunately, this was nowhere near as dense as I expected it to be. I believe one of its strengths is that it was able to provide a vivid picture of the project and its desired outcomes without bogging the reader down in superfluous (to the layman) information. It also has a visually pleasing mix of text and graphics without leaning too far to one side or the other and while remaining very professional in nature. Furthermore, it lays out the research goals, advancements, and details in a chronologically sound manner. It also appropriately acknowledges the collaborators of the project.

One improvement I may suggest is to have a little more provocative of a title. Perhaps it should be one that better captures the interest of readers who may not be familiar with the innovative nature of this project. Prior advancements in Stirling engine technology and implementation has been slow and relatively uninteresting. This project has the capacity to be a compact source of energy conversion with unforeseen efficiencies surpassing many current technologies. This thing has potential!

On that note, I am still very interested in this project and the eventual implementation of such a revolutionary engine design. I haven’t been as active in the project as I was last week, but we are currently in a slight standby phase. We are waiting on a power extraction and accompanied housing unit to attach to the engine. Once attached, we will be able to take valuable experimental data to further validate the prototype. In the meantime, we are running simulations of a new prototype which will allow for greater control, efficiencies, output power, and hopefully versatility. The parts for the power extraction unit will likely come around the end of my REU experience.

I have had a wonderful time here at Vanderbilt this summer. I am very grateful to Dr. Barth, Anna, and the CCEFP for giving me such a positive introduction into the world of engineering research.

Week 7/8 Poster Critique

To start from an overall view of the poster it seems to be filled to the brim with pictures and graphs. I feel as if there is to much going on to concentrate on a certain aspect of this poster. Now to go more in detail by starting with the title of the poster. It is defiantly a longer title, but it is simple by simply stating what it is their project was about. If there was a way to shorten the title it would be more pleasing to the eye. What I like about the text in this poster is the concise way it was written, but it is also the item of which hurts the overall presentation. With certain topics I feel as if the text does not describe the purpose of the components or system well enough to get a basic understanding of it. Its a tough balance between keeping the details right to the point, while other times not enough was given. The lack of details in the text was helped by the addition of clear pictures and animations. In the box titled Wind Turbines, I like the arrows pointing to the location on the turbine that the text is describing. Though the pictures and animation give a good look at the system, the graphs are hard to read with no subtitles or text relaying the information found. I can tell that this person had done lots of research and that this poster was just to small of space for them to clearly present what they have done over the summer.

Now for where I am at with my project. The test bed that I thought I would be working on this summer was the hydrostatic transmission for mid-sized wind turbines, however, I was given a project that was more maintenance based for hydraulics in general. I was told to do research on how to take an oil sample. With having just received a portable filtration cart, I can take a before and after sample of hydraulic oil to show the difference in ISO cleanliness levels. I have had little to do over the past few weeks, but I am now going lab to lab to inventory what machines they are using and what their maintenance practices are pertaining to the hydraulic oil. The oil samples I take will then be sent out to a lab for analysis.

Progress Update

Our project rests on three test rigs:  a component-level test rig, a system-level test rig, and a fatigue test rig.  To date, only one of those is up and running, and we’ve managed to take preliminary data and begin analysis.  We’re waiting on new equipment to arrive in order to assemble the second and third test rigs.  In the meantime, we’re migrating our input/output data acquisition programming code to a new program that is more compatible with our goals and equipment and we’re examining ways to quantify variance and uncertainty from our processed data.  The data acquisition equipment also involves working with reconfigurable input/output devices and field-programmable gate arrays; so, needless to say, there’s a bit of a learning curve.  We hope to have all test rigs up and running by the next two weeks and hope to have the component-level paper draft started by week’s end. 

Published Poster Critique

As requested, here’s my critique of a poster submitted a year ago from the REU in my position.  An image of the poster is attached, for reference. 

Content

I understood the point of the research:  testing whether carbon-nanotube infused elastomers could “sense” damage by measuring electrical resistance.  The poster clearly stated the question and answered it in the progress section.

Title

The title was short and to the point.  Although it didn’t mention “sensing” per se, it was enough information to keep my interests.  The body of the poster filled in the details. 

Motivation

I’m naturally interested in carbon-nanotubes, so I would have stopped to read this poster anyway.  However, the poster didn’t address the need for sensing damage from a structural-health monitoring or cost/benefit perspective.  Although neat, I would have liked to have known why the research is necessary.

Approach, Results and Conclusions

I could generally follow the research outlined in the poster but I think an outsider would be confused if he/she didn’t already know what a strain-energy accumulator was or why it’s important.  Without that background, it’s not clear as to why a tensile test is even necessary. 

Layout, Graphics and Font

The poster’s layout was easy to follow – headers guide the reader from section to section, arranged left to right, top to bottom.  There is a good amount of white space throughout.

The font is actually a little inconsistent in some places – it’s not critical, but it might drive some picky readers crazy.  Overall though, it’s easy to read.

Most of the graphics are appropriate.  There are some exceptions:  specifically, the figure in the top-right is small, dense, and irrelevant.  The table and plot are appropriate and explained adequately.  I would have liked to have seen a picture of a strain-energy accumulator, for reference. 

Assignment

The above poster was made by Ellen Skow, the graduate student I am working with this summer.  From first glance, the poster makes good use of space, fonts are appropriately sized, and credits are acknowledged properly.  I think there is a good use of "cartoon" figures which help contribute to the viewer's understanding without having to go into large detail. Bullet lists are widely used throughout the poster.  Overall I was able to follow along well with statements, and I think the problem statement, solution approach, and conclusion were all clearly stated.

Week 7: Angelica

 As a child I grew up with a father who is a mechanic and owned his own one man garage. This meant that I also grew up pumping breaks sorting nuts and bolts and being around cars. This was the first step into the mechanical world I experienced, and I am so thankful that my dad made me do all the things that I did. Once I reached high school, one of my dad’s close friend came to live back in Idaho. As I got to know him, it turned out he was an electrical engineer. I found his career fascinating as he had traveled the world, living in different countries, having to deal with environmentalists trying to kill his projects and such. It seemed really enjoyable and so I started to look into it more. I also started to physics class and realized how much I enjoyed it and also realized that engineering was a great way to apply it. So from my freshman year of high school on, I decided I wanted to be an engineer, and pursued it until now and onward!

Week 6: Angelica

My project has been really interesting and I am so glad it has to do so much with CAD. I have just been doing smaller projects to get familiarized with CAD more and have practice on it. The robot that my project is involved with is meant to use a helical needle in it that uses a "follow the leader" movement in order to reach the brain. The robot is meant to treat epilepsy. The current form to treat it requires cutting open the skull in order to get to the brain. It is a much less invasive way to get to the hippocampus. This robot uses pneumatics in order to actuate to bellows, one for rotation and the other for translation.  One of the greatest challenges is that the robot is to be used in an MRI scanner, which means that no magnetic metals can be used because of the magnetic fields within the scanner. This is what makes our robot unique. It is 3D printed in order to be used in an MRI scanner so that the location of the need can be seen at all times and also to see the heating of the probe.

Week 7/8

A grad student in my adviser's lab was kind enough to lend me her poster (pictured below) to analyze and use for this post. I believe that she did a good job in creating an effective, understandable poster. The title was concise and gave good background for the basis of her research, and the relevance for her work was clearly addressed. Dividing each section organized her main points and made them easy to follow. She used contrasting colors that are easy to see from a distance on her graphs. Additionally, she did a good job in acknowledging all of the sponsors associated with the project. Some comments that I have are the text on the graphs and some of the "cartoons" is difficult to see from a distance and changing the color of the borders from blue to red would help place more emphasis on her home institution. Overall, I think she did a good job with the layout and emphasizing the motivation for her research.

In regards to my project, I am making good progress. My project involves the investigation of biodiesel fuel quality and moisture content. I have finished testing all of my fuel samples and am currently working on analyzing the results.

Webcast Blog Assignment

 

My advisor provided me with the above long format poster for the webcast blog assignment. I received the poster in pdf format with page size 7'7" x 3'.

Prof. Sue Mantell highlighted the importance of recognizing the institution at which the work presented was completed. The example poster that I was given does a nice job of this by including the Milwaukee School of Engineering logo and by incorporating the school colors into the background.

In regards to the overall layout of the poster, it follows a natural top-to-bottom, left-to-right progression, but it does not have numbers or arrows to indicate this sequence. However, the box headers should provide the observer with a good indication of the flow.

The graphics utilize a mixture of "cartoons" and photographs. The cartoon in the concept section provides a good overview of the concept without complicating matters. The photographs used appear to have been necessary because they could not have been efficiently represented in other forms. The primary critique is that the text for the charts and other graphics may be too small to be easily read from a distance. However, this is difficult to judge from an electronic copy of the poster.

Overall the text size is easy to read, but the information is presented primarily in bullet lists, which Prof. Sue Mantell warned against. However, I am uncertain what format would be better to present the information.

This poster ties directly into the project that I am working on this summer. My project involves the mass optimization of the combustion cylinder for the concept presented on the poster. At this point I have an initial geometry and am working on developing appropriate constraints that will allow solidThinking Inspire to run the optimization specified.