"We always strive to shatter the mold!"
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Executive Summary | Problem Statement | Possible Solutions  
       Decision Matrix |  Final Solution | Experimental Data | Safety Concerns 
About the Sponsor | About the Team

Shattered Ideas has proposed the creation of a safe mechanism for effectively crushing light bulbs.  The team was formed as a result of Skills of Central Pennsylvania collaborating with Pennsylvania State University’s College of Engineering to create a project for a senior design course.  The members of Shattered Ideas have created an easy-to-operate machine that effectively crushes light bulbs.

The cost of waste removal has been more than Skills anticipated, and they would like to reduce that cost by reducing the amount of waste they produce.  Crushing defective light bulbs will greatly reduce the amount of volume they occupy in a dumpster, subsequently lowering the cost of waste removal.  The team will also focus on controlling the “dust” created by crushing bulbs, which is actually a fine powder and a necessary component in the light bulbs.  This is a major issue because Skills of Central Pennsylvania has other products that must remain dust free.  Preliminary research has indicated that this powder from the light bulbs can be hazardous, so the containment of the dust is especially important.

Since the underlying mission of Skills is to provide opportunities for disabled members of the community, it is important for the design to accommodate a disabled operator.  Ideally, the crushing machine/process will provide a job for someone who may not have otherwise been able to contribute.  This criterion has played a significant role in the design process.

The team has been allotted a $600 budget to complete the assigned task.  Using a decision matrix, the team has assessed the strength of each potential design, and determined the most feasible final design.  Shattered Ideas is confident about the safety, reliability, and ease of use of their design

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One of the services that Skills provides is light bulb inspection for Osram/Sylvania.  While inspecting light bulbs may be the primary objective of this service, Skills stays true to their mission of providing support those who need specialized services.  This inspection service provides a number of disabled people with jobs.  To be successful, Skills must be conscious of both their business and their community, so both must be considered in the evaluation of a problem.   

The current process of discarding defective bulbs has produced more waste (in terms of volume) than expected.  Several thousands of defective, intact bulbs are discarded each week, results in waste removal costs of up to $1,800 a month.  Creating a simple machine to crush defective light bulbs, effectively reducing the volume of waste, could lower costs and also produce a job for a disabled person.  The person operating the crushing machine would be performing a significant task and ideally saving Skills money in the long run.

 Closer inspection of the process revealed a problem other than the volume of waste.  Employees complained about a fine dust that seemed to come from bulbs that were broken accidentally.  This dust turns out to be an irritant, and it will certainly have to be dealt with, especially when it comes to crushing the bulbs.  Accidental breakage occurred on the inspection line and during transport, in part because of flimsy or worn out cardboard boxes.

The original problem combined with some preliminary research has led to a more appropriate problem statement with specific objectives.  This statement can be divided into the following three parts:

·        First, the current process produces an unnecessarily large volume of waste, so the solution should significantly reduce that volume.   
·        Second, the crushing process will release a toxic powder from the light bulbs, so the solution will control this powder and include necessary safety precautions.
·        Finally, Skills is dedicated to providing meaningful jobs to people with disabilities, so the solution should call for some kind of simple human operation.

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Hydraulic Crusher

The hydraulic crusher takes advantage of hydraulics to effectively and easily crush the light bulbs.  This design can be either manual or automatic depending on the hydraulic that is attached to the design..  The  hydraulic for the automatic crusher is motorized as opposed to the manual “jack like” crusher for the manual.  This crusher will incorporate interchangeable plastic bins for easy transport from line to crusher.  The bin will have the  hydraulics move a plate to crush from the top.  The top plate will also be equipped with a dust collection system to control the dust from the broken light bulbs.  

Meshing Gears

This design would use a gravity feed to drop bulbs from a bin into the gears, which by turning would crush the bulbs within them.  The gears would be approximately 1.5 feet in length with a diameter of about 8 inches.  The gears alone would be costly.  This design also be unfeasible, as it would be hard to implement a gravity feed system that wouldn’t jam easily.  It would be important for this design to have a powerful enough motor that light bulbs wouldn’t jam the gears. 

Cement Mixer

This design takes the drum (which would be some form of new bins) and adds a shaft through the center of it.  The shaft would have chains attached to it.  When the drum was filled to a specific capacity it would be wheeled back to a motor, which would be mounted in the rear of the warehouse.  The shaft would connect to the motor.   When the motor was turned on it would spin the shaft, which would whip the chains around which then would crush the bulbs.  Unfortunately this design wouldn’t crush the bulbs as finely as some of the other designs.  If this design were overloaded it could also have problems if the chains were unable to get free of the light bulbs. 

Lead Screw / Rack and Pinion

The lead screw and rack and pinion system would be very similar.  They both would be similar to the hydraulic system except in that in the lead screw and rack and pinion the plate will be lowered to crush the bulbs.  These systems run into problems as the bulbs start to  compact.  After a certain point it will take more torque from the motor to effectively crush the bulbs.  Because of the problems experienced with the resistance from the crushing, these systems would experience force on the screw threads, which must be precise for this system to effectively work.  The rack and pinion design needs to have their threads very precisely extruded in order for the system to be effective.  These systems also cannot easily be manually operated due to the amount of force that would be necessary when resistance is encountered.   

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One of the key approaches to making the decision of which design was the best was to use a Decision Matrix.  The criteria used for our decision matrix are cost, feasibility, capacity, reliability, portability, ease of use, and efficiency. 

Cost - criterion is fairly straight forward comparing the cost to create each device.  The design with the lowest cost will have the highest number for the cost criteria.

Feasibility - a measurement of various factors.  These factors include calculations necessary to create the design, ability to construct the design, and the time needed to make the design successful.

Capacity - used to gauge how many bulbs each design could accommodate at one time without being overloaded.

Reliability - measures the chances that a machine will break down in service.  One of the main measurements of reliability will be based on moving parts.  The more moving parts a design has leads to an increased chance of being unreliable. 

Portability - a measurement of the design’s size and ease of moving.  It has been made clear that our design should be easily moved or relocated. 

Ease of Use - measures the relative difficulty to use the machine.  If the design functions by the push of a button it will get a higher ease of use rating than a design which would require physical input.

Efficiency - a measurement of how well it can crush the light bulbs.  If the machine can only break the light bulbs into large chunks it won’t do so well (low rating) on the efficiency scale.  If the machine can grind the bulbs into finer pieces it will get a high rating.

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Brace Dimensions:
           Crushing plate: 20 in. x 24 in. x 0.1875 in.
           Brace height: 48 in. 
           Brace base/top: 30 in. x 26 in. x 0.1875 in.
           Crushing plate support height: 12 in.
           Crushing plate support cross-section: 1 in. x 1 in. (see Appendix)

Brace Material: Medium grade, mild steel

Lifting Mechanism: 1500 pound motorcycle jack 

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Inhalation of dust
        - Respiratory  irritant
        - Added vacuum system and plastic curtains for dust control

Correct bin placement in crushing mechanism
        - Additional braces added in order to properly align the bin

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Skills of Central Pennsylvania, Inc. is a private, non-profit, human service organization that is committed to creating opportunities and providing support for individuals who need specialized services to acquire the necessary skills and experiences to participate in all aspects of personal and community life with dignity and respect. (Click here for their Website)

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Johana Rico
    Project Manager
            -Record-keeping and collection of documents
            -Keep team focused
            -Responsibilities are evenly distributed
    Qualifications
            -Past experience in team environment with emphasis on management
    Other Skills
            -Six Sigma
            -Manufacturing experience

Steven Scott
    Communication Officer
            -Communication between group and sponsor
    Qualifications
            -As a production intern for The Washington Post, Steven gave presentations to mailroom managers
    Other Skills
            -Machine dynamics
            -Engineering mechanics
            -Safety in the work place 
            -Metal  fabrication

Justin Jonaitis
    Engineer/Secretary
            -Apply creativity and experiences to project design
            -Keep minutes for the group meetings
    Qualifications
            -As a co-op of Dana Corporation, Justin learned the intricacies of Excel, and gained experience in
                     reviewing Technical drawings.
    Other Skills
            -Design
            -Machine dynamics
            -Engineering mechanics
            -Pro-Engineering 

Adam Rahmel
    Engineer
            -Apply creativity and experiences to project design
    Qualifications
            -Worked for Naperville's Engineering Department for two summers providing substantial experience in construction
                     and construction supervision.
            -Constructed a model of the lower leg for the Penn State Biomechanics Lab 
    Other Skills
            -Basic Finance
            -Business Plan development
            -Intellectual Property

Brent Herring
    Engineer
            -Apply creativity and experiences to project design
    Qualifications
            -As a co-op for Curtis Wright EMD in Pittsburgh, he created operational guidlines for machining processes and
                    improved on the design for manufacturability manual with a multidisciplinary team. 
    Other Skills
            -technology-based entrepeneurship
            -leadership in organizations

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