UTRGV / COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE / MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT /
TEAM 3: Mesquite Bean Harvester
(Index Page)
|
Students (L-R) |
·
Carlos Guzman ·
Victoria Garza ·
Stephanie Ramos ·
Alexandra Salinas |
|
Faculty Advisor(s) |
·
Dr. Arturo Fuentes ·
Dr. Joanne Rampersad-Ammons ·
Mr. John Pemelton |
|
Instructors |
·
Dr. Noe
Vargas Hernandez ·
Mr. Greg
Potter |
|
|
|
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WE
ARE TRYING TO SOLVE?
WHY IS THIS PROBLEM
IMPORTANT?
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR
DESIGN PROCESS
Welcome! We are Team #3, also known
as “Team 4-I”. Our team consists of four intellectual engineering students,
Alexandra Salinas, Victoria Garza, Stephanie Ramos, and Carlos Guzman. Our
project is the Mesquite Bean Harvester.
Texas has a large population of honey
mesquite trees (Prosopis glandulosa). The bean pods that are grown on these
trees can be made into flour, jams, and jellies, which contain high nutritional
benefits.
Figure 1: Honey Mesquite Beans
However, the current method to
harvest these beans is limited to hand picking and manual labor. This creates a
bottle neck in production due to the low quantity of beans being harvested each
day. We have designed a two-part system that will shake the ripe beans off a
honey mesquite tree and will catch and guide the falling beans into storage.
Our system is divided into an excitation system and a collection system.
As a team, we have worked so hard to
make this work efficiently and effectively. We hope that you enjoy this project
as much as we did.
Watch
our Welcome Video!
Mesquite farmers
in the RGV region need an effective,
mechanized
solution for harvesting mesquite bean pods.
· Given
the current trend for healthier foods and products, the demand for mesquite
bean-based products has increased his calls for a new and efficient way for
harvesting mesquite beans.
· The
current method of harvesting relies on time-consuming, strenuous manual labor,
which has created a bottleneck in productivity.
Figure 2:
The Cappadona Family Harvesting Mesquite Beans
Click
on the icon above to hear our Final Problem Statement!
To better understand the
problem, we conducted background research on the following relevant topics:
·
Complex Biology and Geometry
They can grow to be large
trees reaching 30 ft in height or they can grow short with low branches to
resemble a shrub. Honey mesquite trees are known to thrive in hot and dry
climates and are typically found in North America within the southern states of
the USA. [1]
Figure 3:
Unique Patterns of Mesquite Growth
· Historical
Significance
Back in the indigenous days of the early
Americas, Native Americans would pick beans and use them as a food source,
source of fuel, dyes, structural material, and even alcohol.[2] Because of
mesquite’s ability to thrive in arid environments, Native Americans and
animals were able to eat the bean pods within the
desert. Today, the mesquite tree is seen as an extremely invasive
species, and the mesquite tree’s versatility and applications are not readily
known by much of the public.
Click on the icon above to hear more about the
background of mesquite!
For more information about the historical
significance and uses of mesquite, please click here!
· Information from Cappadona Interview
When beans are ripe, they are ready to be picked
with almost no effort and could fall off with even the smallest gust of
wind. [3] Any ripe beans that are on the trees are to be collected. It is not
possible to collect beans from the bare ground due to contaminants from
animals, pollutants, and molding from the ground. Containers that the beans are
used for collecting must be free from any stones, sticks, branches, and other
debris. Beans that are soaked, dampened, or damaged by water cannot
be milled, and the area must be free of pesticides. The harvest
season for mesquite beans is from early June to late September. [2]
Watch the video below to learn more about the Cappadona Family and their passion for utilizing mesquite!
For more
information and details about the Cappadona Ranch and
their mesquite bean products, view their website here!
·
Safety
Because Mesquite Trees have sharp thorns which protect the
areas where the flowers and beans bloom, if the user does not need to put their
hands into the foliage to pick the beans, the safer they would be. Due to this
need we chose vibration to be what removes the beans from the tree.
Figure 4: Sharp Thorns of a Mesquite Tree
· Competitive Products
Some current solutions hand picking the ripe beans, tree
shakers, and an olive picker. Out of these three methods only one is honey
mesquite specific. Although olive pickers and tree shakers are not made to
cater to mesquite harvesting, they are known to help harvest other fruits and
nuts and can be useful for analysis.
Figure 5:
GOBALYARD Electric Olive Harvest machine and olive shaker for olive picker.
To view this product in its website, click here!
Figure 6: The Cappadona Family Hand-Picking Mesquite Beans
Figure 7: Kadıoğlu EMR400 Walnut Branch Shaker Harvesting Machine
To view this product on its website, click here!
Our main motivation to work on this
mesquite bean harvester is to help create alternate methods of food resources. With
the Earth’s ever-increasing population, alternate methods of food
resources are important to investigate to discover how one can
nutritionally thrive during environmental and social disasters, such as
droughts, food shortages, etc.
With this
concept in mind, using mesquite beans is now more prominent within
the American Southwest and is trying to be pushed towards the public.
Seeing the importance of the problem, the next step would be to identify
exactly who is affected by the problem and at the same time, describes how our
proposed solution can affect not only the user but other affiliated parties.
Figure 8: Our Stakeholder Map Conveys the Types of Users that Would Benefit from Our Product
Our
stakeholder map above shows us the people and businesses that will be directly
affected by the decisions made for our designs. With the importance of our
problem statement, we also must consider those affected, with the user in the
center. Moving forward, the solution that must be considered will have to
benefit all parties affected, either directly, or as an effect of our solution.
“We propose the design of a two-part
system that will both remove the beans safely from tree and collect them for
the final stages of the harvesting process.”
After understanding the problem in
depth, we explored various potential solutions and selected the best concept.
This is how our product solution works: the excitation, hook device will excite
the beans at the end of the trees which will fall into the awaiting collection
tarp. Once hitting the tarp, the beans will pool together at the bottom of the
cart.
Figure 9: Excitation Prototype Sketch
Figure 10:
Collection Prototype Sketch
Once we defined a clear solution idea
(i.e. concept), we applied our engineering knowledge to transform it into a
real product. These were some of the important design challenges and how we
approached each one of them:
Excitation System:
The solution of using
vibrations is not a new one in agricultural engineering. As mentioned before
there are many forms of excitation that can be used to shake fruits or nuts
down from a tree. The team investigated multiple sources such as frequency and
amplitude of almonds [4], and the experimental studies of apple vibration
harvesting. [5] With these academic papers in mind, we can begin our approach
mathematically for vibrational design.
Before designing the hook, we needed
to identify the best mode of vibration to use to cause the beans to drop. We
investigated torsional, bending, and axial vibrations, studying the types of
stresses they produced at the stem of each bean.
Figure 11:
Types of Vibration and Their Stress Concentrations
After extensive analysis we
determined that causing bending vibrations would create an optimal design due
to the low frequency required to make the bean’s stem reach its natural frequency.
Figure 12:
Prospective Vibration and the Range of Frequency Needed to Drop Mesquite Beans
Collection System:
The system itself would
be inspired to many agricultural solutions that are applied in other harvesting
methods. Specifically, the general idea of the collection of the mesquite bean
pods relies on several design challenges that were set up due to the complex
geometry.
1.) The
device height must have a low profile since the mesquite tree branches ranges
from high to reaching down to human height. By approximating the height of the
shortest branch of a sample of trees, the average was collected to determine a
height reference.
2.) The
material of the collection system catching the beans needs to be robust enough
to handle puncture forces from falling beans. A thorough material selection was
done to ensure that the material has a longer lifespan.
3.) Since
the collection system will have to be on a large ranch and spans land several
acres, the device must be robust enough to carry and harvest.
4.) The
angle of the tarp should change as desired by the consumer to adjust to
different canopy heights.
5.) The
cart itself should be able to reposition its rotational position with ease.
We found that physical prototyping was
extremely helpful to increase our understanding of the problem and the
feasibility of our solutions. Our first prototypes were simple but useful and
we continued evolving into more complex ones.
This was our first prototype; it may
be simple, but it helped us understand how using an offset mass attached to the
shaft of a brushless motor would create such elevated levels of vibrations.
EXCITATION
Figure 13: First SolidWorks Prototype – EXCITATION
Figure 14: Second SolidWorks Prototype – EXCITATION
COLLECTION
Click the icon above to see a video of our First SolidWorks Prototype for Collection!
Figure 15:
SolidWorks Prototype - COLLECTION
After much work, this is our final product:
Figure 16: Both Excitation and Collection in Use
The following figures and videos show
the different systems and how they work individually and cohesively!
Figure 17:
Animation of Our Products in Use. Created by Carlos Guzman.
EXCITATION
Click
on the icon above to watch the Steps to Use Excitation!
COLLECTION
Click
on the icon above to watch the Steps to Use Collection!
Click
on the icon above to watch our Tarp Retraction and Swivel!
TESTING
AND VALIDATION:
In this final sub-process, the final
design is tested, evaluated, and optimized so that it can be used to
effectively solve the problem identified. After testing and validation, the
final product can be directly led to a higher level of production.
To begin testing, the team prioritized towards the effects of
vibrations our offset motor has on the bean pods.
EXPERIMENT 1
As a team, we sought to test our offset mass motor circuit on a
mesquite tree. We took unconventional measures to get the motor onto the tree.
Figure 18:
Alexandra and Stephanie holding the circuit/motor assembly for testing
Figure 19:
Phone Used as an Accelerometer for Testing Purposes
We used our cell phone as a means of recording our data. We used
the app phyphox, which utilizes the accelerometer
within a smartphone to obtain pertinent data related to excitation.
Figure 20:
Acceleration vs Time Obtained from Experiment 1
For this experiment, we obtained data within an acceleration vs
time graph. Within this data, one can see the lower peaks in which there is
minimal excitation and one can see the higher peaks that represent the approach
to resonance at that location on the branch of the tree.
With a signal like the one shown in Figure 19, the approach to
this would be to apply a Fourier analysis to convert the signal from its time
domain to the frequency domain. From there, the dynamic response of the
mesquite bean would be obtained.
Although this data was not perfectly accurate because of the
factor of the weight of the cell phone, using a lightweight accelerometer will
allow us to gather useful data in the future.
EXPERIMENT 2
For the second experiment, we wanted to prove our concept further
by simulating the drop of a mesquite bean due to excitation. However, given the
time of year and the passing of our harvest season, we looked to an alternative
and used rubber bands to drop the mesquite bean.
Figure 21:
Mesquite Bean Suspended onto Branch by Rubber Band
Figure 22:
Image Showing the Mesquite Beans Suspended on a Branch with Rubber Bands
We were going to follow the exact same protocol as in Experiment
1, but our motor began to malfunction and completely stop working. We were
unable to complete further testing because finding and ordering a new motor was
necessary.
Our project is a proof of concept that requires further
development, these are some of the pending items:
·
In
the future we would like for our prototypes to be tested during the Harvest
Season.
·
A
vibrational system can be created to improve movement of the tarp material to
convey the beans falling form the tree into the bins.
·
We
would want to replace our d/c motor wire connections and implement a Bluetooth
motor to create a more maneuverable extension arm without any interference from
electrical wiring.
·
We
wanted to fabricate our own cart to ensure stability and make the project 100%
made by us but given our budget and how we did not want to reinvent the wheel
we went with a prefabricated cart that was low-quality.
·
We
would like to implement the use of a low-weight accelerometer during testing to
accurately obtain frequencies experienced at the stem of the bean due to
applied vibrations from the motor without severely changing the properties of
the experiment.
·
The
process of replacement or removal of the tarp can be optimized and, ideally,
the process should be simplified for the sake of the consumer.
·
In
the future we would like to redesign our tarp to be wind resistant and
stationary when it is fully expanded.
·
As
a team, we know that the level of this project is not at its highest potential.
We feel that the best option would be to pitch this wonderful project to a
prospective senior design team.
Click
Here to hear about the details of our Future Work.
IN CONCLUSION
The senior design process was a challenge to implement all the
core fundamental engineering lessons that were learned in the classroom. With
the knowledge we possessed, we, as a team, created a prototype that serves as
an excellent steppingstone to the project. There were many design choices that
were made during this project that we believe to be innovative and can
certainly be expanded on.
Figure 23:
[Left to Right] Stephanie Ramos, Victoria Garza, Alexandra Salinas, and Carlos
Guzman Proudly Showcasing Their Final Senior
Design Products
As a team we faced many trials throughout the course of
Senior Design 1 and Senior Design 2, both in our academia life and in our own
personal lives. With the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is safe to say that our
team has made remarkable steps towards making a complete product that can be
used for the Cappadona Ranch and for their growing
business venture in the agriculture business. As the project continues to grow
and expand with innovative ideas, we expect that the final product can become
something that is innovative in the honey mesquite bean picking process.
We would formally like to thank you for viewing our website.
Without the unwavering support of every single one of you, this project would
not be as successful.
Click on the icon above to watch our
Conclusion!
REFERENCES
[1] Bovey, R., 2016, Mesquite, Texas A & M University
Press, College Station.
[2] DesertUSA.com, 2020, "Cooking with Mesquite Beans - DesertUSA", Desertusa.com [Online]. Available:
https://www.desertusa.com/lil/Mesquite-Beans-recipes-lil.html. [Accessed: 02-
Dec- 2020].
[3] Cappadona, Victoria, and Justin Cappadona. 2019. Review of Cappadona
Ranch: Mesquite Harvesting Interview by Carlos Guzman, Alexandra
Salinas, Victoria Garza, and Stephanie Ramos. https://utrgv-my.sharepoint.com/:u:/g/personal/victoria_a_garza02_utrgv_edu/EdMcC_LdGEFFk81TAuIH9a4B-SpY5AZQ2NRpi-7SNlT6iw?e=csbyx5.
[4] Loghavi, M. & Khorsandi,
Farzaneh & Souri,
Saman. (2011). The Effects of Shaking Frequency and Amplitude on vibratory
harvesting of Almond (Prunus dulcis L. cv. 7Shahrood). American Society of
Agricultural and Biological Engineers Annual International Meeting 2011, ASABE
2011. 3. 10.13031/2013.37424.
[5] Ming Liu, Fenglei
Wang, Haiqian Xing, Wenli Ke, Shaochun Ma, The
Experimental Study on Apple Vibration Harvester in Tall-spindle Orchard,
IFAC-PapersOnLine, Volume 51, Issue 17, 2018, Pages
152-156, ISSN 2405-8963, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2018.08.079.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405896318311959)
We went
through a meticulous design process to arrive to the final solution. The
information in this page is a summary intended for the general public. To learn
about the project details, visit the DESIGN PROCESS page. To obtain
access contact the course instructor.
The team
received help from various persons, their help was critical to our success, we
would like to acknowledge:
Instructors:
· Dr.
Noe Vargas
· Mr.
Gregory Potter
Faculty Advisors:
· Dr.
Arturo Fuentes
· Dr.
Joanne Rampersad-Ammons
·
Mr. John Pemelton
Hi-bay Staff and Manufacturing
Assistance:
· Mr.
Hector Arteaga
· Mr.
Jose Sanchez
· Jared
Martinez
· Bryant
Salinas
· Santana
Gutierrez
· Kane
Samoso
· The
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Collaborating Business Team:
· Sylvia
Robles
· Yasena Cantu
· Fernando
Ramirez
· Moises
Davila
· Gerardo
Reyna
· The
Cappadona Family