October - December | 2014

This was my first project of my undergraduate career in my Visualization for Design class (AutoCAD). Our goal was to select a small aquarium pump, and redesign it such that output was increased to 150% of the original. We had to at least have simple physics to justify our design choices and also had to draw our designs in AutoCAD for presenting.

We reasoned that the oscillating handle that compresses the pump oscillated due to the magnetic field of the solenoid. To increase the magnetic field, we opted to increase the coils by 150%. This however, would be only part of the solution. As you can see in the drawing, the actual pump diaphragm also needed to be increased. Doing some simple calculations, we figured out how big the pump needed to be increased by, and how much we needed to move the oscillating arm.

The final step was to CAD our designs. As a team, we all contributed into generating ideas to fulfill the 150% output as well as CAD work. Personally, I like drawing, so I did much of the hand drawing, such as the demonstration drawing. My part of the CAD work was for the Solenoid.