Physics/Mechanical senior project brainstorming

[mbigras]

I'm studying Physics for a B.S. but intend to pursue a masters in ME. Next year I'm going to start my senior project in physics but would like to start doing some research and brainstorming as soon as possible.

What I'm trying to do is choose a project that can provide the means to bring all these different pieces together in a modular way. Some of my own brainstorming:

Physics and Mechanical related project that pushes me to use practical skills
I'd like to use some:
-Programming skills, especially C
-Plotting and Data analysis, especially Matlab
-Engineer design, Solid Works
-Maybe some stress analysis

Something like: design some sort of mechanical device in Solid Works, fabricate it, use an arduino with some C code to collect data and analyze the data in Matlab.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about a practical application of these ideas. I haven't worked in a technical internship yet so I'm having trouble coming up with a concrete idea for what the actual project should be, even though I know what tools I'd like to use. My hope is to develop some skills working on this project that could be applied to an internship or job.

 

[berkeman]

One idea might be to simulate some mechanical structures (like bridge trusses, or vehicle frames), and then fabricate the structures and instrument them and validate your simulations for vibrational modes, stress/strain characteristics, etc.

In the real world, validating your simulated results is very important.

 

[mbigras]

thanks for the input. This lead me to some interesting tutorials on vibrational analysis with solid works!