About The Club

"Engineering Solutions at Berkeley is a student-run, non-profit hardware engineering consulting organization that comprises the brightest mechanical engineers, designers, and makers who create cost-efficient, reliable, and high-quality solutions for our clients.

Over the course of the semester, we work with companies to creatively improve workplace efficiency, solve independent engineering challenges, and prototype and test solutions. Engineering Solutions at Berkeley provides an unparalleled opportunity for students to get hands-on project work and industry experience." (taken from website)

Project

The Hive is designed to keep UAS fleets in a ready-to-fly state, keeping UAS in the shade and out of the rain, but there was no subsystem that helped to regulate the temperature. Our client through Engineering Solutions at Berkeley, Sentien Robotics, found that the Hive can overheat in direct sun in 86 degree weather. There are also many systems inside the Hive that generate heat such as chargers, computers, power supplies, and the UAS themselves.

This is what they asked of our club: We would like the team to evaluate the current Hive design and provide design updates to help manage this problem.

As the Engineering Project Manager for Sentien Robotics' thermal project, I led a cross-functional team of 3 engineers in terms of identifying heat sources within Sentien's drone hub. From here, my team analyzed the impact of external conditions on internal temperatures while I supervised the development and validation of thermal design changes and engineer-made tools using Solidworks, Ansys and MATLAB.

Before diving into the project, I made sure to understand the scope of this project in order to decide on adequate milestones and a final deliverable:

Brainstorm different cooling solutions ranging from passive to active measures.
Evaluate the feasibility of integrating natural ventilation or evaporative cooling techniques.
Consider power consumption in solutions. Balance airflow, insulation, and active cooling.
Use CAD or other modeling software to draft potential designs or modifications.
Analyze airflow, heat transfer, and temperature gradients to validate the design.
Document findings, recommendations, and final design proposals.
Determine the estimated cost for implementing the proposed solutions.

Due to how broad the project started to become, I consulted with my engineers as a team. From here, I decided to ask my engineers to come up with a generalized strategy for solving this kind of problem, addressing the bullet points below to deliver the most effective solution while utilizing their talents.

What are the mathematical tools and models that we will use?
What experiments will we conduct?
What does a thermal model look like that will generalize to the client's two other models of the Hive (XL with window, and ISO with insulation)?
What kinds of strategies do other companies adopt?

My 3 engineers just so happened to be experienced in HVAC-related projects, so they felt extremely comfortable with completing what was asked of them.

After meeting weekly with my engineers, conducting 1-on-1 check-in chats, and communicating with the client every week, my team made great progress regardless of how open-ended this project proved to be! While I was used to being the engineer who had tasks assigned to them, I now was on the managerial side of the project experience who served as a middle man between my engineers and client. Therefore, I had the final say when it came to checking-off comprehensive documentation and recommendations before my team presented their final design proposals for the company (which are displayed below).

If there are any more questions regarding this project, please reach out to me! This is an overview of the project.

Thermal Regulation of the Hive Expedition