EvapoGATOR has had a bit of a quiet week because we are all struggling through sickness, midterms, and career showcase. But other than that, we’re doing great 🙂
After the PDR, our team is focusing on Prototype Inspection Day (PID) next, which takes place on November 15th. For PID, we will be creating and showcasing a rough prototype of the new vacuum evaporation system we plan to build. In the coming two weeks, EvapoGATOR is finalizing our new design by researching materials and parts. After this research, we will make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of each component with regard to its technical specifications.
This past week, EvapoGATOR members brainstormed and generated a total of 24 conceptual ideas. These ideas included layouts of the entire system because the team is open to changing how the components are placed on the system.
This week, EvapoGATOR had the great experience of presenting our preliminary design report (PDR) to our liaison, Dr. Andrew MacIntosh, and the department chair of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Dr. Sue Percival. We put a lot of hard work into this presentation and were very excited to share it with our sponsors. In our presentation, we included the following:
A summary of the project statement and our solution
Diagrams of the physical architecture of the system
An outline of the pre-lab and accompanying undergraduate lab we performed
Project specifications
Our current part solutions for each component of the system
A project risk table
A Gantt chart with a project timeline
A rough preliminary estimate of project cost
The team was pleased with our presentation and felt it reflected the work we’ve put into this project so far. We received some helpful feedback and guidance after the presentation, so in the coming week, we are focusing on implementing that.
Our next steps for this project include finalizing our PDR, hosting a brainstorming session to generate more conceptual ideas, continuing work on three-dimensional CAD models of the system, and finishing research on component material choices.
Below are some pictures of conceptual part solutions, generated by the team.
Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us for yet another weekly update.
This past week, we finished a rough draft of our Preliminary Design Report (PDR) presentation, and we practiced with our peers. It was very fun and eye-opening to see what other groups are doing and to have a chance to see what they thought of us and our project.
First, we all really enjoyed spending time with our classmates and pointing out the great work they’d been doing. It was great hearing about their approaches to their projects, and it was also cool to see how they presented certain topics in their presentations; I think watching our peers gave us some ideas on ways to step up our game.
Next, while it might have been a bit difficult to stand up and be judged on our work, our team saw it as a great way to get feedback and improve! Many of the comments we received pointed out that our presentation didn’t flow correctly or left out some key details at the beginning. We took this to mean we needed to elaborate and focus on clarity.
With this in mind, EvapoGATOR added more information including a clear problem statement at the beginning of the presentation and more visuals of conceptual ideas toward the end. We also added a pretty cool gif (seen below) of the process of vacuum evaporation to visually aid the people we’re presenting to. (edit: for some reason, I can’t figure out how to get the gif to work, so please just enjoy the diagrams of each stage of the process, and imagine they’re moving)
After a lot of hard work, long hours, and tears when Microsoft Word wouldn’t respond for the 15th time in 10 minutes, our team feels proud of the work we are presenting. We have all put a lot into this project so far, so wish us luck on our PDR presentation on Tuesday!
2D geometric layout of vacuum evaporation system.Step 1: Pour in liquid productStep 2: Steam entersStep 3: Steam heats product to boiling point; product turns to vaporStep 4: Evaporated product travels to condenserStep 5: Cold water cools vapor to liquidStep 6: Final liquid product of volatile chemicals in Buchner flask
Our team has had a productive week with many exciting things happening as we prepare for this next phase of our project!
EvapoGATOR members completed the Vacuum Evaporation lab on Friday 10/7 with our liaison, Dr. MacIntosh, a professor and researcher in the Food Science and Human Nutrition (FSHN) department.
The team also took a tour of the IPPD lab in the new Herbert Wertheim engineering building to see the modern and sleek workspaces, machine shops, and 3D printing labs.
We have been working on our concept generations, design matrices, and a preliminary design report (PDR) to break down our system for thorough understanding.
Each of these events held essential learning experiences for our team. Most importantly, the evaporation lab allowed for better comprehension of the current vacuum evaporation system and the process used in labs involving the apparatus. Dr. MacIntosh uses the system to teach his students about the dependency of pressure and boiling point, and while they focus on the measurements and basic concepts, EvapoGATOR honed in on the system inputs and outputs to find the total energy balances of the condenser and evaporator. By performing this lab, we expanded our knowledge of the components in the system, how they interact with each other, and the thermodynamics behind the whole process. This laboratory experience is helping our team finish the reverse engineering of the current system so we can design a better one.
Our week ahead is looking promising as we near our PDR presentations. These presentations will show our sponsor and any stakeholders our plans for the design along with our understanding of the problem. While bringing all the pieces together for this project has proven challenging, our team of three has excelled with the tasks laid before us, and we plan to continue our hard work.
This weekend and next week, we will be completing the first draft of our PDR presentation and report, and in the coming week, we will practice and perfect it. Below are some pictures from the evaporation lab.
To begin, this week in Florida, we have been bracing for the hit of Hurricane Ian. Because of the inclement weather, classes were canceled at UF from Wed 9/28 through Fri 9/30. Luckily, everyone in EvapoGATOR is safe, and we’ve still worked diligently this week to meet our requirements.
While we could not accomplish everything we wanted in this short week, EvapoGATOR has still had the chance to complete some exciting new steps.
Emily and Alli attended the IPPD Team Building Workshop on Saturday 9/24, hosted by Florida Power & Light, and they worked with another team to receive their Lean Six Sigma White Belt certificates.
The team thoroughly researched vacuum evaporation systems and the thermodynamics and heat transfer behind the processes occurring within the apparatus — we each read four chapters of background recommended by our liaison Dr. MacIntosh and our coach, Dr. Jackson.
With Dr. Jackson, we reviewed the textbook information and constructed a detailed flow diagram of the current evaporator system.
We also completed our First Month Report and Project Roadmap, two documents that helped us start to plan out the remainder of the semester and our project.
With everything we have accomplished this week, EvapoGATOR is looking forward to continuing work on our concept generation and Product Design Review next week. We are also preparing a pre-lab before completing the evaporation lab next week in the FSHN pilot plant with Dr. MacIntosh.
We hope everyone is staying safe! Here is a picture of Emily and Alli at the Team Building Workshop.
The EvapoGATORs are starting to feel a chill in the air as we continue working on our design project. This week, we were able to settle into our roles a bit more and get the ball rolling on our project.
After some extensive research and a bit of brushing up on our thermodynamics and heat transfer knowledge, our team has begun to shift our focus to truly understanding the current vacuum evaporator system in the FSHN laboratory. To accomplish this, we have:
read and taken notes on a chapter about evaporators from a textbook recommended by our liaison, Dr. MacIntosh
created a hand-drawn schematic to help us identify the system’s many components
created a graphical flow chart to help us understand the process of the current vacuum evaporator
completed a Product Design Specification (PDS) document to flesh out the requirements of the new system
met with Dr. MacIntosh and, with his help, clarified some of the concepts and components we were confused about after our initial meeting
We have learned that thoroughly comprehending the original vacuum evaporation system is the first step in our design process, and we are very grateful for the help and guidance from our liaison, Dr. MacIntosh, and our coach, Dr. Jackson.
Throughout this week and weekend, we are planning to:
continue our research
construct more visual aids
brainstorm design ideas
prepare to complete the food science vacuum evaporation lab ourselves
This week, we’ve been working on fully understanding the scope of our project by beginning our research, meeting with our liaison, and determining our stakeholders and project design specifications.
We were very excited to meet with our liaison, Dr. Andrew MacIntosh of the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. He is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to food science, thermodynamics, and heat transfer. During our initial meeting, he demonstrated the functionality of the current vacuum evaporator system. While we are unsure of the current system’s origin, we are confident that we are on the way to understanding how all the components function together to create a working evaporation tool that is amazing for educational purposes.
From here, we are continuing to research vacuum evaporation systems and brainstorming design ideas with the specifications from Dr. MacIntosh.
For now, enjoy a picture of the current vacuum evaporator system!
The EvapoGATOR team would like to introduce ourselves:
Emily Ford — 4th year Mechanical Engineering major
Ryan Pytosh — 4th year Chemical Engineering major
Alli Porras — 5th year Mechanical Engineering major
We are very excited to start working with our sponsor, the UF Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, on a new vacuum evaporator for their lab. We are also thrilled to get expertise from our coach, Dr. Philip Jackson, who is an IPPD and UF alum, throughout this process.
Now, please say hello to our biggest supporters: Apollo and Valencia! They are our resident research librarians, and we know they’ll be an immense help to our project.
