U ND E R G RA D UATE
RES E AR C H & PR OJ ECTS
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS TAKE PART
IN A TWO-SEMESTER SENIOR DESIGN PROJECT BEFORE GRADUATION.
MANY PROJECTS ARE SPONSORED BY INDUSTRY.
Competition Teams
agBOT
1st Place
There are dozens of undergraduate teams that take part in com-
petitions - here are how three of our teams did this year.
Back-to-Back agBOT titles in ‘18-’19
For the second time in two years, Virginia Tech’s agBOT team came
home from Indiana with a first-place trophy.
The 4th annual agBOT competition, hosted by Purdue University’s
College of Agriculture and Gerrish Farms was held in West Lafayette,
Indiana May 16-18, consisted of two separate competitions: a weed
and seed event and a competition to design an autonomous system
that can collect, store, and prepare a soil sample for analysis.
The team, made up of 35 students from mechanical engineering,
electrical and computer engineering, and computer science, all in the
College of Engineering, were divided into five sub-teams.
Working with faculty advisor Alexander Leonessa, professor of me-
chanical engineering, Guo and the team upgraded the autonomous
ATV they used to win the watermelon harvesting challenge at agBOT in 2018 with obstacle avoidance
technology and created a towed vehicle that was a self-contained laboratory.
HEVT
2nd Place
Year 1 - EcoCAR
Formula SAE - 14th
Mobility Challenge Team takes big jump
The Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team took second place during year one of
the four-year EcoCAR Mobility Challenge. The team also received sec-
ond place for propulsion system integration, and tied for first on their
architecture selection report. The first year challenge asked teams to
conceptualize and design the technology they will use in their vehicles.
The Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition series, has 12 univer-
sities applying advanced propulsion, electrification, and SAE Level 2
automation to a 2019 Chevrolet Blazer. A Level 2 rating is considered
partial automation, with automated functions in acceleration and steer-
ing, but with a human engaged with dynamic driving and monitoring
the environment at all times. The U.S. Department of Energy, General
Motors Corporation and MathWorks sponsor the competition.
24 Revised and Corrected, Nov. 2019