Hi Monty,
is he proposing these are the same subject?
Mine were entirely seperate, in fact, we were not allowed to cross over from our design project to our actual project
For my design, I was using mobile workshops/office cabins. I designed a 6.5Kva generator, running 110 & 230V with remote start facility, on a pull out tray in the vehicle body.
It was actually easier than it sounds, I selected a suitable desiel power pack, a suitable alternator, then just nocked up a frame on CAD, added a control panel, fuel shut offs etc, designed a frame and away i went. Of course, nothing was actually built, it was purely about design, parts lists etc.
For my project:
I was heavily involved with aircraft crashes and recovery. We used to use pneumatic elevators (big airbags) to raise an aircraft up if it landed on its belly. the elevators had 13 cells each, and typically 10+ elevators were used for each job.
It was manpower intensive, because each individual cell of each elevator was individually controlled, and each was pressure critcial on the next. I designed a remote control unit that could retrofit to the pneumatic control consoles, allowing one guy to controle hundreds of elevators cells from one position.
Of course it contained everything the course is about:- sensors, actuators, instrumentation, control circuitry, warning alarms etc etc:
And It was complete shash of course! Each unit would have cost in excess of 5k to build, and we would never have used them, but it wasnt the point.
It allowed me to create the need (que lots of powerpoint slides of large aircraft crashing into the runway), allowed me to create a solution that no-one in the audience knew anything about (que lots of on-screen calculations of pressure differentials, centre of gravity considerations and turning moments/shear forces - they love all that)
And finally left me with something i could not possibly demonstrate (without a 100 ton aircraft crashing on demand outside the college)
The point is this: it was all about effect: i designed a project that was impractical, was too expensive and probably wouldnt have worked - BUT, i submitted a great big project folder, pages of calclations, photos, parts lists etc etc etc - and got a big fat distinction.
Ok I know i was in a specialist field at the time, but the point i am trying to make is: (as you have probably realised) the ILLUSION of the end result is far more important than the actual viability of the end result
You got any ideas yet, gotta be honest, i had three favourites for my project, and i mulled each one for a couple of weeeks, then, seeing the calendar clicking away towards Xmas, panicked, made a decision and stuck with it.
One of the guys fluffed his - tried changing half way through the year, submiited a few hand written scraps of paper and was sent on his way.
If theres one peice of advice i could give you, its this:
once you have made your decision, stop worrying if you have made the right decision, and concentrate on making the decision right
as a thought, have you considered doing something like a jazzed up 2391 test board, but expand it into a fault simulator as well, you know, flick switches and introduce short circuits, insualtion faults, neutrals on the wrong side of RCD, O/C main bonding etc etc
I did think about doing a universal invertor/VSD test set as well. You know, simulate a motor, plug it in, monitor speeds, currents etc etc
I'll give you had a hand with the power point if you need it!
regards
Shakey