DIMLab - Design of Innovative Machines Lab

The Design of Innovative Machines Lab (the DIMLab) is home to the design team led by Dr. Drew Murray and Dr. Dave Myszka of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. The primary goal of the team is to create, design, build, and test novel machines and mechanisms for a variety of applications while generating the theory that supports these innovations. The DIMLab is in Kettering Labs, room 143, on the University of Dayton campus. 

Announcements
2020

The statically equivalent serial chain (SESC) is a way of visualizing and tracking the center of mass. Once the SESC is constructed, the center of mass is located from the kinematics alone, and no force plates or sensing of other data is needed. The mannequin in the video above shows this principle utilizing some sweet dance moves. Seen below, the actual mannequin was recently tested in the Motion Lab (Fitz Hall room 318) and we're hoping to compare the data to the model soon!

Jorge Luis Borges has a short story called "The Library of Babel." In it, he details a library that is seemingly infinite in scale (it has more books than there are atoms in the universe!) yet is actually finite. Honors thesis write Noel Michel is building solid models to try and make discussions of this aspect of the library possible.

https://drive.google.com/a/udayton.edu/file/d/1bAUmk8QxEO5CpxILLfsPe-EMRqIZ4AUn/view?usp=drive_webhttps://drive.google.com/a/udayton.edu/file/d/0BzZa2Gx2ajJIMmJQX2hDc3RPeWJrYVh0bl8wb1dYbWpDb2xr/view?usp=drive_web
In more work from Noel, she is also modeling Franz Kafka's "The Burrow". 
 
 
2019

On July 26th, Drew Murray gave an invited presentation in Shanghai, China at Shanghai University. The title of the talk was "Designs with Many Moving Parts - The Links Between Things." He was hosted in Nanjing by Feng Feng (Jeff) Xi and Yingzhong Tian.
On May 1st, Yucheng Li was awarded a Graduate Student Summer Fellowship. These awards are from the Graduate School at the University of Dayton and provide a stipend for the summer!
On April 24th, eleven DIMLab members presented their research at the Stander Symposium: 
  • Austin Mills - Assessment of Tensegrity-Based Aircraft Wings Capable of Morphing
  • Yucheng Li - Spatial Chains for Matching 3-Dimensional Curves
  • Andy Bazler & Bennett Snyder - Design of a Trike for Paraplegic Use with FES
  • Ben Millard & Dillon Balk - Design Modeling of Various CubeSat Solar Arrays Configurations
  • Justin Ehren - Energy Analysis and Orbit Simulation of Actuated CubeSat Solar Arrays
  • Matt Deters & Zack Jordan - Linkages In Mechanical Presses That Produce Substantial Dwell
  • Alex Seither & Ian Melnyk - Tracking the Center of Mass of a Human Using a Statically Equivalent Serial Chain

https://sites.google.com/a/udayton.edu/dimlab/home/Yucheng%20Stander.jpg?attredirects=0
On February 15th, the DIMLab moved from Fitz Hall to Kettering Labs. Check out our new space:
Yucheng Li and Professor Dave Myszka at the 2019 Stander Symposium


2018

On April 18th, seven DIMLab members presented their research at the Stander Symposium: 
  • Eric McGill - Design of a Self-Orienting Solar Array for Small Low-Earth Orbit Satellites 
  • Luke Schepers - Validating the Location and Tracking of a Human’s Center of Mass Using a Statically Equivalent Serial Chain  
  • Tanner Rolfe - Development and Actuation of a Shape-changing Rigid-body Human Foot Prototype
  • Hardik Viradiya - Dynamic Analysis of Alternative Mechanical Press Linkages
  • Kevin Brand - Experimental Validation and Reliability Testing for Center of Mass Body Tracking
  • Saleh Almestiri - Displacement Analysis and Rigid Body Guidance in Spherical Linkages Using SU(2) and Homotopy Continuation
  • Haithem Murgham - Steady-State Modeling of Condensing Units with an Economizer Loop 
  • Yucheng Li - Spatial Morphometric Analysis Using Shape-Changing Rigid-Body Chains
Their posters can be found here.
On March 27th, Drew Murray gave an invited presentation at Saint Louis University in the Parks College of Engineering, Avaition & Technology. The title of the talk was "The Links Between Things - Designs with Many Moving Parts." He was hosted by Riyadh Hindi.
In February, Dave Myszka was awarded an Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellowship.
On January 15th, Drew Murray gave an invited presentation in Nanjing, China at Southeast University. He then gave the presentation at Changzhou University in Changzhou, China on January 17th. The title of the talk was "Designing With Many (& Sometimes Too Many) Links: Shape-Changing Mechanisms in Dies and Morphometry, Infinity Chains, and Statically Equivalent Serial Chains." He was hosted in Nanjing by Bingjue Li and in Changzhou by Huiping Shen.