Hey I am Sean McClanahan,
I am from Raleigh, North Carolina.I am a Mechanical Engineering and Physics Double Major. I have always been inspired by many of the feats of engineering and science throughout the previous years. I wish to work in the space program and plan on impacting the developement of space technology. To make it so we can go to outerspace cheaper and easier. I am thrilled about learning how most things work, and how to design most ideas that come to mind.
The three most impactful designs created in the last 150 years are:
1: The modern day smart phone
2: The computer
3: Automobiles
One simple product in my apartment is my Unokki Kalimba. This is a musical instrument. The instrument has been around for a while and I cannot find the person who patented this exact model, the Kalimba in general is patented by William Saragosa. These instruments originated from Africa and the metal was originally carved wooden sticks. Geometry in this design, and really any design in general is crucial to function. When we are working with instruments, every factor is import to produce the sound. Looking into the wooden base of the instrument will show a large hole, where the sound will come out of, and two back holes allow for the player to cover them up to add vibrato, or change in vibration. The hollow base itself allows for these vibrations, which is what gives the instrument its volume, and tone. The top consists of 17 keys which are strung to make the pitch of the object, the longer the metal key the lower the pitch. This needs to be made of metal for many reasons, the main being its longivity, strength, and how it works with the vibrations. These keys are attached to another peice of metal which allows for the keys to be moved to tune the instrument. Another object that could do an similar job is a piano, although it is not portable, which is the main factor for this item. The piano has many (sometimes up to 88) keys. While there is not much documentation I could find, I did find that most of these instruments are made in China. As stated before there is not much documentation on this, but what I can tell from the surface layer is that they used laser cutting for the engraving of the product and most likely a similar process for the hollow bit of the kalimba and then the wooden peices are glued together. The metal keys seemed to be massed produced by machinery.
For my project I would like to design some sort of safety system that can be used in Class 1 rockets, specifically for me for when I try to get my certification
So far I've spent about 1 hour setting up this project.