Massey Engineering Yearbook 2013

ENGINEERING AND FOOD TECHNOLOGY YEARBOOK 2013

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For more information email: engineering@massey.ac.nz or visit: www.massey.ac.nz/engineering or visit our facebook page facebook.com/MasseyEngineering

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Welcome Engineering and Technology at Massey University will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2015. Graduates can now be found in New Zealand and around the world in careers including technical design, manufacturing and general management. Today, Massey University offers a wide range of courses at both undergraduate (BEng, BFoodTech, BSc and B.Construction), and postgraduate (diploma, masters and PhD) level.

While providing a strong grounding in the principles of engineering and technology we have recognized the need for graduates who are well rounded in their problem solving skills, communication, ability to work in teams and appreciation of the wider commercial, economic and social environment. Our courses are designed to develop these skills with a strong emphasis on activity-based learning.

Right from day one students are immersed in projects that challenge their problem solving ability in a range of different contexts - from designing solutions to improve living conditions for the people of the Mekong Delta to developing products for a new start-up company.

The culmination of the undergraduate degree programme is the ďŹ nal year project. Here the students apply their knowledge to the solution of real life commercial or industrial problems. This booklet presents summaries of the Engineering and Food Technology 4th year projects from 2013.

Students can choose to major in one of 5 key areas – Product Development, Mechatronics, Electronics and Computers, Chemical and Bioprocessing, and Food Technology. Each major provides the opportunity for further specialization.

A Massey University engineering or technology degree provides you with the high level of technical knowledge AND the professional skills to truly make a difference – today and into the future.

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The Butterfly

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By replicating the complex micron - and nanometer-scale photonic structures that help give buttery wings their colour, researchers have demonstrated a new technique that uses biotemplates for fabricating nanoscale structures that could serve as optical waveguides, optical splitters and other building blocks of photonic integrated circuits.

INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT & INNOVATION Successful innovation demands the understanding and integration of a wide range of inputs. Industrial Management & Innovation at Massey Engineering provides the students with an excellent basis in engineering, complemented with industrial management, quality assurance, marketing and innovation practice.

Graduates in Industrial Management & Innovation are well places to take on roles which demand an ability to work in a multi-functional environment where a high level of communication and integrated problem solving is essential.

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Benjamin Connelly

Orewa College Major: Engineering and Industrial Management Supervisor: Prof Olaf Diegel

Project tool tracker Alto, a plastic manufacturing plant in Henderson were suffering two issues with product tooling. The first issue was that tool setters were losing time during tool changes because the location of a tool was not always known or recorded. Secondly, the correct maintenance procedures were not always being performed on the tooling, creating unscheduled downtime or less than optimal running conditions when the tooling was in use.

The aim of the project is to satisfy Alto’s requirement of a system to track and maintain all current tooling.

A secondary requirement of the project is for the system to converse with the company’s production management system, Intouch. The project will involve creating an information database for the company’s 400+ tools, bar-coding each of the tools and implementing a scanning and user interface system for the tooling location and maintenance status to be updated and monitored.

Upon successful completion of the project Alto will be able to efficiently track their tooling location and ensure that a tool is serviced and prepared for use.

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Redesigning stadium seating Uncomfortable stadium seating is something that has been tackled a number of times in the past, with almost every solution relying on polyurethane foam; however this material has very poor performance in harsh weather - especially UV light - and is essentially unrecyclable.

Also, considering that the design of stadium seating is incredibly similar throughout the world - with almost all stadium seats being either completely fixed or use a pivoting base mechanism - there is a real opportunity to develop something new and innovative to exploit this gap in the international market.

Completed in conjunction with Topline Plastics Ltd. (a local rotational moulding company), this project aims to utilise a newly developed flexible polyethylene to create a more comfortable and durable stadium seat for indoor or outdoor use – targeting the premium/corporate areas.

The concept shown uses two parallel springs to move the entire seat base as opposed to using a traditional tilting seat base.

Max Betteridge Freyberg High School Major: Product Development Supervisor: Mr Tom Robertson

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Automatic ejection mechanism for gummy cups The project is to develop a machine that will produce gummy confectionery in the shape of a cup. A Food Technologist developed a mixture for gummy confectionery and this mixture was moulded into the shape of a cup (Webb Ellis Cup). To make these gummy cups manually the mixture was injected into the moulds, the moulds were placed in a freezer where they cool for 10+ minutes and then manually opened and the cups extracted.

This project automates the process of making the gummy cups, making it faster and easier. The machine developed in the project will be used for display purposes during Massey Open Days. The desired outcome for the project is to automate the process of making gummy cups while providing entertainment to viewers and attract people into the Engineering and/or Food Technology degrees at Massey University.

Fernando Castellanos Colegio Capouilliez, Guatemala Major: Product Development Supervisor: Mr John Gawith

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Greg Peacock

Palmerston North Boys’ High School Major: Product Development Supervisor: Mr John Gawith

Small wind turbine blade production system As global energy resource limitations become increasingly relevant, more and more people are turning to domestic scale wind turbines as an alternative power supply. The client for this project requested an improved process to manufacture a customizable range of wooden turbine blades in a repeatable fashion, with a focus on time savings and a reduced skill requirement.

The blade design is currently manufactured by carving the shape from a singular piece of wood using hand tools – a time consuming task with a limited degree of repeatability, and requiring a reasonable level of woodworking skill. The initial user of the developed system is the project client, with potential secondary users in developing nations, where access to an electricity network is very limited, or not available at all. This presented a number of unique design considerations.

The solution in development is a purpose built router jig, which can make a copy of any template blade provided by the user (within a set range of dimensions).

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Penelope Tait

Hillcrest High School, Nigeria Major: Product Development Supervisor: Mr Chris Chitty

Vaccine transportation module The vaccine transportation module provides a high stability temperature controlled environment for the transportation of vaccines throughout NZ. Currently, vaccines are transported in a polystyrene box with an ice pack which cannot guarantee that the vaccines will stay within the speciďŹ ed temperature. These boxes are also thrown out after one use, creating a large amount of waste.

The new module will guarantee safe arrival of all vaccines within the speciďŹ ed temperature range to the destination. It uses GPS tracking to ensure the correct destination and updates the time and power available to reach the destination regularly. The module uses alarms to signal the driver, supplier, and customer if the module cannot keep the right temperature or if it goes off track. It also is able to be recharged so that it can be reused. The rechargeable multi-use mobile unit may also be used as temporary storage to keep medications cool should there be delivery problems such as in times of disaster.

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Hose management system The project sponsor, Martin Engineering would like a hose management system design that is standardised and can be ďŹ tted to their new trailer tanks and sold individually as an add-on to previous buyers of their trailer tanks. The hose management system is designed to facilitate quick and easy fuel transfer from the storage tank to its intended vehicle.

Martin Engineering currently manufactures hose reels as a component of their trailer tanks. Its design varies between tanks, depending on their clients’ requirements. This results in them altering the size of the hose reel to accommodate different lengths of hose every time. A standardised design will mean that the ďŹ nal product would include a small range of sizes to accommodate hoses of different lengths.

Ethan Tay

HELP University College, Malaysia Major: Product Development Supervisor: Mr John Gawith

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Richardt Jenkinson

Upper Hutt College Major: Product Development Supervisor: Mr Tom Robertson and Mr Ralph Ball

Assisted surf casting machine Surf casting is a pastime enjoyed by many people around the world; it is quite popular in New Zealand. Surf casting, commonly ref referred to as beach casting or beach fishing, is a involves standing on the shore line or in the ocean sport that inv and “casting “casting” your line far into the distance in order to be among the ttargeted fish. This casting process involves a rather co complex body movement which incorporates the whole body from the feet for balance to the hips, shoulders and arms used to twist and propel the line and sinker fa far into the ocean.

After a llong day of surf casting even seasoned veterans are left sore and stiff from the physical exertion. This cu is compounded infinitely for a person who difficulty suffer from a physical disability and is physically suffers unab to cast the line. I aim to create a machine that unable will assist in the casting process but not take away from the physicality of the experience. The machine wil help the user get the bait into the ocean at a will re respectable distance but leave the actual fishing to the user.

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GPS waypoint navigating kontiki Electric Kontiki’s are a popular beach longline ďŹ shing method used in New Zealand. This recreational activity involves sending 25 hooks attached to a mainline 2km offshore through a motorised craft. These crafts are left offshore for up to an hour before winching them back in.

The only guarantee assuring the Kontiki will return back to shore is the integrity of this 200lb mainline. If there is any breakage along this mainline, the $2500 - $4000 Kontiki is lost at sea. Common causes of these breakages are due to sharks, snags, and theft whilst offshore To solve this problem, I develop an autonomous Kontiki that is capable of following preset GPS co-ordinates in order to detach the line and hooks at an exact location. The Kontiki then turns around and heads back to shore leaving the line and hooks at sea, eliminating the chances of it becoming lost due to a mainline breakage. The line and hooks are then winched in as per usual.

Erik Scheirlinck Rosmini College Major: Product Development Supervisor: Mr Chris Chitty

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Diver propulsion vehicle A Diver Propulsion Vehicle, otherwise known as a DPV, is an underwater rwater e diver fatigue and extend transportation device. Its main purpose is to reduce the range at which the diver can travel. It is used mostly for recreational activities such as cave diving and observing marine e life. However, there are currently no DPV’s on the market that are specifically ly designed for hunting purpose (e.g. crayfish hunting). Most DPV’s on the market are hands-on, heavy, or hunting applications. and cumbersome to move with which are not ideal for ds-free, light weight, and Therefore, my project is to design and develop a hands-free, tank mounted DPV for hunting purposes.

Matthew Yung Rosmini College Major: Product Development Supervisor: Mr Chris Chitty

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Andrew Drain ain

Newlands College Major: j Product Design g Engineering g g Supervisor: Prof Pro Olaf Diegel

Mo Movable electric guitar picku pickup system The aim of this project is to design a system which provides an electric gguitarist with greater control over the tonal characteristics characteristic (sound) of their instrument. This is achieved through the linear line movement of the pickup along the direction of the strings, as this movement results in different overtones on each string being bei accentuated. The pickup is moved using a lead screw drive mechanism m and controlled via a switch and two buttons, used us to access preset positions. aestheti of the guitar is heavily inuenced by 3D The aesthetic printing technologies as it is to ďŹ t into a guitar company’s exi existing product range, which contains 3D printed guitar bodies.

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Sarah Alice Ratclie Waikato Diocesan School for Girls Major: Product Design Engineering Supervisor: Prof Olaf Diegel

Anago butchery knife sharpness analyser Anago is a company that designs and manufactures knife sharpness analysers for meat works. The aim is to design a knife sharpness analyser to be used in butcheries that is to be sold for approximately 10% of the price of the original knife sharpness analyser.

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The Dragonfly The body of a dragonfly looks like a helical structure wrapped with metal. Two wings are cross-placed on a body that displays a colour gradation from ice blue to maroon. This structure equips the dragonfly with supreme maneuverability. No matter at what speed or direction it is already moving, it can immediately stop and start flying in the opposite direction.

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MECHATRONICS Increasingly, modern industry relies on the solution of problems requiring a range of engineering skills.

Mechatronics is a combination of precision mechanical engineering, electronic control and computer technology for the design of products and processes.

Graduates in Mechatronics are sought after around the world and are found in a wide range of occupations including project management, industrial automation, product and process design and manufacturing.

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Nathanael Shaw Longburn Adventist College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Liqiong Tang

Health monitoring system A large number of elderly people require regular health checks and some form of monitoring. Currently this monitoring is generally in the form of phone calls or medical alarms which require the user to press a button when assistance is required. The idea behind this project is to enable monitoring of vital health measures while allowing the elderly person to maintain their lifestyle and independence.

CONFID

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To enable monitoring of several parameters using a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN), a system was designed based on a sensor-coordinator-server model.

The aim is to develop a wireless communication system for integration into any sensor development project. The key features being ease of use, light weight, and low power requirements. The actual implementation is currently conďŹ dential.

Durability of ecap processed aluminium alloys The aim of the project is to assess the durability of the 5083 Aluminium alloy which has been subjected to Equi-channel Angular Pressing (ECAP).

The completion of this aim requires the successful reproduction of a viable ECAP process along with a feasible durability assessment technique.

Jonathan Beetham Pukekohe High School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Karl Dahm

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Mechanical sundial display piece This project is dedicated to the annual festival, Kiwiburn. It aims to improve the experience of all participants by being the central time keeper as well as a piece of art for everyone to enjoy. With the use of motors and Adafruit Industries’ Raspberry Pi, the self-adjusting sundial will track daylight time all year around. At night or on a cloudy day, the led and laser display will illuminate the structure and continue time keeping.

The infrastructure that this project will rest on is based on the Mayan Temple design. I hope this will inspire others to take up engineering and see that it’s not all just scary wires and electronics. Engineering can be fun, creative and beautiful too.

Stephenie Yeung Corran School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Huub Bakker

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Chris Stewart Mount Maunganui College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Prof Olaf Diegel

Laser cutter The project consists of a computer controlled 40 watt, carbon dioxide laser tube that can be used to cut intricate shapes and designs on a wide variety of materials. The computer controls the position of the laser beam, which condenses the power to allow it to cut through the material. It can be used for a range of design projects with materials such as acrylic and wood.

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Justin Moloney

Palmerston North Boys’ High School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Ibrahim Al-Bahadly

Remote home security monitoring This project was aimed at remotely monitoring the lock condition of existing external doors to improve home security at a low cost. This was achieved by creating an embedded sensor system in the limited space inside a deadbolt that could remotely transmit data. This data could then be read from the internet, allowing a number of security protocols to be implemented, and technologies to be used in parallel to increase overall home security.

The sensor was designed to have minimal installation effort from the user, requiring no assembly beyond pla placement inside deadbolt. The system also aimed to h have maximum battery life, implementing wireless n node wake/sleep protocols and circuits that did not produce negative effects on the response time of the system.

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Variable compression ratio engine For my project I worked with HIEFF Engine LTD to design a VCR or (Variable Compression Ratio) engine. The engine uses a slider plate to adjust a split connecting rod conďŹ guration that results in variable piston height at top dead centre. The invention increases fuel economy depending on driving style from between 20% to 40%. It works by burning the fuel air mixture more completely using higher pressures and temperatures optimally in any rpm range.

The VCR unit supplies the engine with the highest possible, safe compression ratio for every cycle. It has the ability to run different grades of gasoline or ethanol and uses advanced piston dwell geometry to allow for a longer fuel burn time and ultimately higher piston pressures and temperature which result in more torque on the crank. We are currently pursuing a joint venture with Chrysler Group LLC USA to put this engine into production.

Nicholas Hill

Saint Kentigern College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Johan Potgieter

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Liam Barrack

Palmerston North Boys’ High School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Prof Subhas Mukhopadhyay

Wireless dehydration measuring system Current methods for measuring dehydration in a person are quite limited. Existing processes are lengthy and require the person being tested to give a blood sample so electrolyte levels can be tested, or give a urine sample so it’s specific gravity can be tested. These methods are complicated and require a medical professional to administer them, so their usefulness is limited.

The purpose of this project was to determine if it was possible to measure the dehydration of a person using external body sensors. The wireless dehydration measuring system is based on Texas Instruments’ EZ430 Chronos Microcontroller. This is a microcontroller embedded in a watch that can be worn around the user’s wrist. It can wirelessly communicate with a computer through a RF communication USB dongle transmitting important information. The system uses heart rate, skin temperature, galvanic skin response, and BMI to predict hydration levels. The model used for this prediction was derived from experimental data collected from 16 individuals who attended a physical training session.

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Medical service management system Healthcare is one of the most important areas in our society. With the fast development in science and technology, implementing intelligent and automatic healthcare systems is inevitable to meet today’s high expectation on health service. This project aims to develop a Medical Service Management System that could improve the quality of medical care and provide people with a timely service.

This system consists of client and server which can communicate and they share one database on server side that can secure personal information with several measures. Users can request or modify required medical services from client user interface that installed on client site. In case of an emergency, the call from the client can inform medical staff on server site side immediately.

The server is installed on the computer of the health provider such as a hospital or a medical centre.

The system can also help medical staff to organise and manage some repeated daily work, such as administration and inspection of daily working schedules, and automatically remind the staff and patients of oncoming events.

Yanjin Chen

MeiShi International School, Chengdu, China Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Liqiong Tang

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Pneumatic artificial muscle testing rig Pneumatic artificial muscles are seeing wider use in academia due to their reasonably low cost, high force to weight ratio, reliability, relatively low compressed air consumption and mainly their compliance factor. This makes them great in applications that involve interaction with humans, such as the actuators that give movement to robots or powering exoskeleton suits that help rehabilitate stroke patients. Currently there is a limited range of commercially available artificial muscles.

The aim of the project is to provide industry with the means of testing fabricated muscles, which would facilitate the development of pneumatic artificial muscles further. So that there are more commercialization of these muscles that help brings them out from academia and more into industry wide use. To ensure a successful testing rig, the testing rig has the ability to measure the actuator’s force, length and pressure. These values are then sent in real time; to a microcontroller that then provides up-to-date information to a graphical user interface (GUI).

Yixiao (Baker) Du Avondale College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Frazer Noble

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Nick Reid

Palmerston North Boys’ High School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Huub Bakker

Are you taking your meds?

As much as half of all medication is not taken correctly (almost $400M in New Zealand), sometimes leading to emergency department visits or other crises. Cook St Pharmacy is looking to reduce these incidents by assisting patients to take their medication as prescribed. Specifically, this project looks at ways to identify when blisters in med-packs have been opened.

The scope of the project is to determine whether measuring a change of capacitance is a viable means to detect the opening of a blister. Using the aluminium foil backing of the blister pack as part of a capacitor, a change in capacitance can be measured when a blister is opened; this capacitance change occurs due to the change in surface area of the capacitor’s plate (blister pack).

Beyond the scope of the project this device would be a module in a larger project that monitors patient’s prescription drug use and aid them in taking their medication correctly via an alarm or providing feedback to their caregiver.

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Ridvan Solimov

Orewa College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Johan Potgieter and Prof Olaf Diegel

The spherical observation drone The Spherical Observation Drone was invented by Japanese research engineer Fumiyuki Sato, the drone is designed to traverse environments that are insurmountable or hazardous.

This project was an exercise in reverse engineering the design and functionality of the invention. The drone behaves like a vertically standing propeller craft, enabling it to fly forward at high speed; the spherical shape allows it to drop to the ground and roll, preventing damage.

Potential applications include using as using it for police pursuit, surveillance, or search and rescue.

The drone consists of spherically configured ribs, encasing a propeller driven body, the buoyancy of which is increased by the use of a duct and ‘spoiler’ aerofoils. High-tech MEMS sensors are used to enable full electronic control and manoeuvrability.

Wi-Fi is used to issue commands to the device and provide a video feed via an on-board camera.

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Simulation of two phase switched reluctance generator The aim of this project was to develop a simulation model of a 2-phase switched reluctance generator (SRG) based on MATLAB/Simulink environment, i.e. using available block sets for switched reluctance motor (SRM), converter, as well as current controllers design. The proposed model is implemented as a Simulink/SimPowerSystems block. It was designed for wind energy application which is categorized under the low and medium-speed range.

This project is mainly about modifying 4-phase 8/6 SRM model to produce 4-phase 8/6 SRG and the corresponding model is further modiďŹ ed to realize a 2-phase SRG model. In this simulation model, the bridge inverter and design of each phase model are simulated. The turn-on and turn-off angles are the two controlled parameters for the simulation results. The simulation results of 4-phase and 2-phase 8/6 SRG will be presented and compared.

With the successful outcome the 2-phase SRG can then be potentially used to replace the 4-phase SRG in the current market for low and medium-speed range application at increased output power with reduction in cost and manufacturing time.

Mohd Amir HaďŹƒz Marzuki MARA College Seremban, Malaysia Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Ibrahim Al-Bahadly

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Luke Dwyer

Palmerston North Boys’ High School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Gourab Sen Gupta

Hybrid locomotion in robotics This project is the second part of a concept that was explored by a fourth year student last year (2012). The goal of this research and development project is to design and build a robotic platform with four anthropomorphic legs that combine with wheels for locomotion. Each leg has 3-DOF and a wheel assembly which remains in contact with the surface.

I will also design the chassis that will house the control system and hold the unit together. The platform has been designed in such a way that it can move using just the legs or the wheels, or some combination of the two.

The platform can also be used to study different gaits of legged robots, which has applications in uneven terrain navigation. Further R&D work into the project will result in the platform being equipped with vision and sensor systems for autonomous navigation, auto-balancing and obstacle avoidance.

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Anti-collision system for multirotors There are grave safety concerns arising from an increase in the availability and domestic use of multirotor flying platforms. This project aims to design and build a cheap and easy-to-implement anti-collision control system for multirotors. An important consideration is to develop the control system in such a way that it is easy to implement on, and integrate with, existing platforms in order to maximise its potential for utilisation by hobbyists.

The flying platform is equipped with 4 ultrasonic sensors to detect obstacles.

The information about the distance of the platform from the obstacle is utilised in the flight controller software to alter the navigation trajectory. Before using the ultrasonic sensors, they were thoroughly evaluated for their suitability in terms of accuracy, repeatability and stability under noisy operating conditions such as mechanical vibrations in the body of the flying platform.

Hamish Fagg

New Plymouth Boys’ High School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Gourab Sen Gupta

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Spatially distributed food texture analyser This research is geared towards the development of a novel instrumented device to measure the spatial distribution of texture in foods and other materials. The device uses an array of 32x32 pins, which are pushed at a constant rate into the food sample. The force exerted on each pin is individually measured using a tactile pressure measurement system. This device will provide the force versus displacement proďŹ le measured for each position in the food sample. The development of the device means that the variance and spatial distribution of texture can be measured. This information can potentially provide the food industry with a new tool to facilitate food science research and product development.

The project also involves developing software to record and analyse data and create texture maps.

Thomas Phillips

Upper Hutt College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Gourab Sen Gupta and Prof John Bronlund

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Mahdi Nimatullah Mohammadi Waitakere College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Khalid Arif

Disposable micromanipulator There is a growing need for simple, cost-effective and robust systems that can manipulate single cells and microparticles in many scientiďŹ c ďŹ elds ranging from micro/nanotechnology to biology. Several different actuation methods have been used in microgrippers, such as thermal exure, shape memory alloys, scratch drive, pneumatic, piezoelectric etc.

These sophisticated methods require extensive fabrication steps, power sources, as well as other additional components (e.g., heating and magnifying elements) for actuation, which directly affect their versatility and design parameters.

In order to address complexities in the fabrication and operation of the above-mentioned methods, a compact and easy to use micro-manipulator has been fabricated using laser cutting of acrylic and other common plastic materials.

This elastically deformable and disposable gripper structure is motorised and provides real-time force feedback of the gripping force during manipulation.

The device can grab, move, and place microparticles in both air and liquid and between the two media.

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Jacques van Burick Green Bay High School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Johan Potgieter

Beer brewing step infusion automation Beer brewing is a complex science of carefully controlled temperatures and rest times. My project aims to simplify this process by developing an intuitive touch screen automation controller which allows hobby brewers to tweak record and develop home brewed beer down to a science. The project aims to encompass and incorporate many of the tools used to brew beer into one simple to use automation controller.

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Combining small-scale wind and hydro generation Researching and designing a system that allows a small wind turbine and hydro turbine to be combined into a single generator. A case study provides the basis to compare the new system with existing, separate generators. The project seeks to generate in the order of 1 kW on average, sufďŹ cient for a typical home. Different methods of mechanically combining the energy sources are considered, including torque splitting and speed splitting mechanisms.

Joshua Pirihi

Spotswood College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Ibrahim Al-Bahadly

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Daniel Sanson Massey High School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Khalid Arif

Pipe explorer This project aims to design and build a mechanical structure of a miniature pipe inspection/navigation robot capable of moving through small pipes. The design constraints include the ability of the robot to negotiate bends, T-joints and steep inclinations. With scale causing difďŹ culty, very small parts are being used in all aspects of the design and development of the robotic system.

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Shape memory alloys to simulate human finger movements The purpose of this project is to apply Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) to simulate the movements of a human finger. Automated systems are normally actuated by pneumatic, hydraulic systems, and servo motors, but other less common methods, such as SMA, are also available. To show that shape memory alloys can be used for actuation, I am using Flexinol® wires and integrating them into a 3D printed model of a human finger to simulate these movements.

The Flexinol® wires exhibit thermo-compressive characteristics (i.e. when the wires are heated above certain temperatures the actuator wires flex or shorten, typically 3-4% of the total length of the wire). The challenges include testing mechanical properties of the wires; studying the extensor and flexor mechanisms of the finger in order to design and develop a 3D printed model; integrating the Flexinol® wires with the finger model; and developing a method to regulate current and heating of the wires for an automated model.

Upon completion of this project, I will demonstrate the working finger model to portray characteristics of Flexinol® wire that allow them to be used for actuation.

Harsh Jogindra Modi Mt Albert Grammar School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Frazer Noble

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Two link brachiator Most living creatures have more than one type of locomotion. An ape, for example, can switch between bipedal walking, quadrupedal and brachiation depending on the surroundings and situation.

The goal of this project is to develop a controller for a two degree of freedom brachiating robot which moves from handhold to handhold like a long armed ape as shown in the accompanying picture. The challenge of this project is to realize continuous brachiation through a redundant mechanism using energybased swing control. This means that kinetic energy and potential energy at the end of the swing is used for the following swing. It can form part of a “multilocomotion robot� that can perform several different types of locomotion and choose the most appropriate as the need arises.

Jegannath Sivanathan Royal Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Edmund Lai

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Nicholas Falconer Pinehurst School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Prof Olaf Diegel

Robotic arm polystyrene cutter The goal of this project is to develop a way of sculpting polystyrene blocks as a way of rapid prototyping designs. A 5 degree of freedom robotic arm is used for the movement and various attachments added to cut through the blocks. A custom program was written to generate the tool cutting paths required as well as to send the commands to the robot arm. Prototyping in this way can potentially be much faster than 3D printing or CNC milling as it can remove large sections of material compared to that of a CNC mill and does not have to create each layer as with a 3D printer.

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Binglun (Larry) Li Rosehill College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Johan Potgieter

De-tumbling control system of KiwiSAT KiwiSAT is New Zealand’s ďŹ rst satellite, which is built for communication and science research purposes. After the satellite is released from the launch vehicle at desired altitude, it is expected that the satellite would be rotating around at reasonable high speed.

The focus of this project is to develop an autonomous control system, so that the satellite is able to slow itself down. The whole de-tumbling control system is developed and calibrated in MATLAB, before it is transformed into C code, which the actual microcontroller on-board the satellite executed.

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Autonomous navigation of a mobile aerial platform The aim of my project is to develop the software to autonomously fly outdoor a multi-rotored aerial platform. The system is equipped with a Global Position System (GPS) module and an ultrasonic distance sensor.

Using the GPS, the flying platform is required to navigate to a desired destination. The location of the platform along the navigation path is transmitted to a base station and its position on a Google map is depicted in real-time. The ultrasonic sensor measures the platform’s height, up to 5m above the ground, and helps the platform to land autonomously and safely without crashing.

Michael Phillips

Upper Hutt College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Gourab Sen Gupta

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Adam Naqvi

Massey High School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Khalid Arif

Android interfaced search and rescue hexapod In the event of a natural disaster, such as an earthquake or the collapse of a building, the response time to locate trapped survivors is crucial. Rescue preparation operations may be time consuming and a fast action to locate survivors is needed. Search and rescue hexapod has been developed as a robot that could be deployed immediately after a disaster in which the conditions are unsafe for people and dogs to begin searching for victims.

Interfacing with the android phone allows it to incorporate the phones’ available utilities that could in include a Gyro Sensor, Accelerometer, audio feedback f from microphone, video feedback from camera and GPS positioning. Additionally, the phone allows the hexapod to communicate through Bluetooth, WiďŹ or a 3G connection.

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Wireless communication and networking through pipes The outcome of this project is going to be used by an engineering company that specialises in pipe proďŹ ling. Currently the products from this company are sent down into pipe networks blind and data is recorded and then collected when the product is retrieved.

The purpose of my project is to create a wireless method of communication so that video streaming and snapshots of data can be viewed live by contractors, allowing necessary adjustments to be made during deployment.

The carrier frequency for my communication is limited to the 2.4GHz range because of its allocation worldwide as the ISM band. The most efďŹ cient means of wireless communication in this frequency range is traditional Wi-Fi. The project focus is about creating what is essentially a mesh network along vast lengths of pipe. Constraints of the project include poor wireless signal propagation in pipes, based upon varying pipe material and diameter, as well as potentially poor conditions inside storm and sewer pipes. The intellectual property gained through this project is expected to be very valuable to the company.

Richard Dando Kingsway School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Frazer Noble

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Automatic plant watering system This project is aimed at garden centres that are required to correctly orrectly water nts require many plants. This is complicated by the fact that different plants es the soil different amounts of water. By creating a device that measures moisture content around a plant, the garden centre’s watering g system cann be controlled to water each plant with a healthy amount of water. r.

Jonathan Thompson Wellington Institute of Technology Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Ibrahim Al-Bahadly

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York Pritchard

Rangitoto College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Johan Potgieter and Prof Olaf Diegel

Chemical storage system The chemical storage system will provide a storage area for chemicals where location and chemical movement within the storage area will be automated. Once the chemical leaves the storage system to be used its use will then be tracked, as the system will know who took the chemical out of the system. This system also provides stock control for all the chemicals within the system. If stocks are low or a chemical is past its expiry date the administrator will be notiďŹ ed by e-mail. When a user takes out a chemical from the system the system will send an email to the user with attachments of all the hazard details of the speciďŹ c chemical.

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David Creagh

ACG Senior College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Johan Potgieter

Robotic tattooing system This aim of this project is to develop the ďŹ rst stage of a Robotic Tattooing System. This consists of developing a machine which is capable of drawing on the forearm of a person and the related image processing and control system software to achieve this.

For this project the forearm is the only body part considered to simplify the problem. This allows a simple X, Y, Z gantry to be used to support the drawing apparatus.

Eventually the project aims to create a fully automated tattooing system capable of producing tattoos in fullcolour, directly from photographic images. Potential uses include a range of medical tattooing applications and cosmetic repair.

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Green gym equipment In New Zealand and around the world, people are interested in buying into green products and technology. Not unrelated is the desire to keep fit and maintain a healthy lifestyle. This is the motivation behind creating “green gym” environments where people can keep fit using sophisticated and varied machinery.

The Green Gym Equipment project aims to develop and produce a viable concept for power generation from human output during workouts. Usually human energy expenditure during exercise is lost to the environment in heat in the resistance provided in the machines; by modified design useful energy is harvested in gym equipment. This harvested energy could either be used to power the equipment or be fed into the grid.

Bernard Huggins

Tawa College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Prof Subhas Mukhopadhyay

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Blair Dixon

Rangitoto College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Johan Potgieter

Electric car The end result of this project is to create a single-seated electric vehicle designed and manufactured from composite materials. The manufacturing process must not include any welding, and the use of metals is limited to fasteners such as nuts and bolts. Most electric cars on the market these days have very ‘modern’ and unusual looks.

Our aim is to create a vehicle that is functional and good looking. This project is being completed in a group of three, myself designing the body, Rhys Howell designing the chassis and suspension, and Steve Lowe designing the electrical systems.

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Solar tracking system Photo-Voltaic (PV) Technology has the highest power density among renewable energies and is considered a highly practical means of converting solar radiation into electricity. Solar power is pollution-free during its use. It has low maintenance or operating costs compared to other environmentally friendly power generation technologies. The power output of solar panels depends highly on the position of the panels with respect to the sun. When the panels are exactly perpendicular to the sun, maximum energy is received.

The aim of this project is to design and build a dual-axis solar tracking system in order to track the sun accurately to maximize the energy output of solar panels.

Sheal Bangera Auckland Grammar School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Edmund Lai

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Automated microfluidic system Many biochemical sensing techniques rely on certain forms of fluid flows in large or small quantities. For example, processes may involve dispensing liquid chemicals into a closed chamber and/or circulating certain chemical through the chamber for specific purposes. However, as the experiments become complex, the quantities and complexity of assays may be far beyond the capability of manual operation.

To cope with this problem, an automated system has been developed using off-the-shelf and/or in-house fabricated components. The system is capable of automatically executing the fluid handling processes - dispensing and circulating - in a sequence defined by its user through a graphical user interface. The user can freely specify which chemical to be dispensed or circulated through the chamber, as well as the processing parameters such as dispensing time, circulation time and circulation flow rate. Because the system can be programmed, it enables the user to execute complicated assays in a convenient fashion.

Furthermore, because of its automated operation, the system enables the user to precisely control the process parameters such as time and flow rate.

AJ Ahmed

Fraser High School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Khalid Arif

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Bardia McRae

Hutt Valley High School Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Prof Subhas Mukhopadhyay

Automatic electronic medicine dispenser (AEMD)

CONFID

The aim of the project was to design a low-cost, exible and easy to use Automatic Electronic Medicine Dispenser (AEMD) intended to be used by people that are prescribed multiple medications which need to be taken at regular intervals. The AEMD can help organise a person’s daily, weekly or monthly dispense of medication at the right time. The system is integrated with remote monitoring and control systems so that caregivers far away can be alerted in real-time. The system is robust and accurate in dispensing the correct medicine so that if a patient misses a medication they will not receive an incorrect dosage.

ENTIAL

The AEMD aimed to compete with existing solutions that offer similar services but are either inexpensive but offer low functionality or are far too expensive but offer similar functionality to the AEMD. The system was planned to offer high functionality at low-cost while delivering the requirements that a patient needs.

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Philip Hudson

Otumoetai College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Karl Dahm and A/ Prof Donald Bailey

Acoustic emission from adhesively bonded composite joints Adhesive bonding has the advantage over traditional mechanical fasteners in that it is able to have smooth load transfer, lesser part count for assemblies and reduced stress concentration over the joint area. Therefore modern aerospace structures are now using more adhesive bonding for the assembly and repair of composite material components. As a consequence the evaluation of the condition of these bonds is becoming increasingly important in the determining if an aircraft is airworthy.

In industry, acoustic emission is a widely used nondestructive evaluation technique that monitors the health of structures. It is now playing an important role as a non-destructive evaluation technique of composite materials. This project is investigating acoustic emission as a non-destructive evaluation technique to assess the integrity of composite adhesive bond joints through the correlation of destructive lap shear test results. The information gained from this project will be used to evaluate the suitability of acoustic emission for nondestructive evaluation of adhesively bonded composite joints as well as comparing it to other non-destructive techniques.

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ASIC for biomedical data compression The project is about designing a low-power application speciďŹ c integrated circuit (ASIC) for lossless compression of a 12-bit signal. The chip uses second order linear predictive coding to compress this signal.

The ASIC is built using 130 nm CMOS technology.

Stepan Lapshev Taylors College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Dr Rezaul Hasan

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Christi Enslin

Centurion College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Johan Potgieter

Electromechanical tiller pilot The tiller pilot comes into its own when you are alone, out on the water and need someone or something to hold the sail-boat on course for a few minutes while you reel in a ďŹ sh, adjust the sails or just want to prepare a cup of coffee. It is not intended to be used as an Auto-Pilot to reach a desired pre-programmed destination.

A desired heading is chosen and the tiller pilot is engaged. The system uses various sensors to determine the boats heading and compares it to the desired heading, calculates the Error and the rate of change of that heading, and processes this information using a FUZZY LOGIC algorithm. The output from the FUZZY LOGIC is used as the set point for the rudder angle.

Based on the error between the current rudder position and the set point, proportional control is used to adjust the speed of the motor which is connected to a mechanical reduction gearbox which in turn controls the rudder angle.

Hardware includes: Arduino-Mega(2560)development-board, touchpad, potentiometer, TB6612FNG-motor-driver, LCD-screen, 12V-dcmotor and a MinIMU9AHRS.

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Composite single seater electric car The end result of this project is to create a single seated electric vehicle designed and manufactured from composite materials. The manufacturing process must not include any welding, and the use of metals is limited to fasteners such as nuts and bolts. Most electric cars on the market these days have very ‘modern’ and unusual looks.

Our aim is to create a vehicle that is functional and good looking. This g project is being completed in a group of three, Blair Dixon designing the body, myself designing the chassis and suspension, and Steve Lowe designing the electrical systems.

Rhys David Howell GlenďŹ eld College Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Johan Potgieter

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WSN based smart grid for utility system A smart power monitoring device is to be developed for monitoring and measuring the electrical parameters of any household appliances. This device will consist of current transformer and voltage transformer to step down the current and voltage from power source at measurable level. The rectiďŹ ed and ďŹ ltered stepped down current and voltage signals will be fed into a microcontroller for data processing. However, the same signal will be fed into zero crossing detectors to detect the waveform in order to get power factor angle to get real power.

All the data will transfer by Zigbee wireless device to a personal computer or smart phone. The measured data will be available at a website which can be available to anyone to browse through it. A graphical user interface (GUI) will allow homeowner to monitor and control any household appliance while they are away from their home thorough the secured internet access. The most of the important power parameters will be measuring are supply frequency, current, voltage, power, power factor, and total harmonic distortion.

Munhaw (Desmond) Kam Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: Prof Subhas Mukhopadhyay

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Benita Yoviani

ACG Major: Mechatronics Supervisor: A/Prof Johan Potgieter

Kinect natural user interface controlled robot Natural User Interface (NUI) programming has recently become popular as Microsoft Kinect Sensor is able to map objects in 3D. In this project, a Kinect NUI was developed to recognize and track a person’s movement. A robotic arm was built to move in sync with the operator’s arm. The NUI can also control the robot with voice command.

The aim of the project is to develop a futuristic system which is able to process 3D object’s position and movement by “seeing” and “hearing” it and then respond to the particular command (gesture or speech) via actuators.

This program could be considered an initial step towards building a smart system like our brains which process inputs from our eyes and ears and tell the body how to react.

The applications of NUI can be robot controlled by miners from a safe area to a plane-like object that is able to avoid obstacles as it recognizes its environment.

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Mathew Flemmer

Freyberg High School Major: Industrial Automation Supervisor: A/Prof Gourab Sen Gupta

Card flex tester Card Testing international (CTI) is a large player on the international plastic card testing market. They provide service to card manufacturers to test cards to required industry standards. An estimated 30 billion cards are issued annually by the International Card Manufacturers Association (ICMA). Card providers need to ensure that when they issue a card it will work correctly for its whole lifetime, or risk damage to their image, as well as massive expenses associated with recalling and replacing batches of faulty cards. Clients of CTI include ABNote, Visa, Mastercard and EFTPOS. CTI commissioned me to make an automatic machine that would flex 8 ID1 cards (credit cards, EFTPOS cards, etc) a prescribed number of times in batches of 4 in compliance with the ISO 10373 standard. This standard stipulates exactly how much the card should be flexed and how often. After consultation with CTI this project also incorporated an artificial vision element. The purpose of this was to watch the growth of cracks in the cards as the test progressed and stop the test when the cracks reached a length of 15mm.

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The Bat Bats use other methods than sight to navigate or hunt. They are able to “see” in the dark by sending out sound waves that bounce back to the bats’ ears from objects such as fruit on trees and flying insect prey. The echolocation or biosonar is a simpler way for robots to perceive shapes than pattern recognition programmes, and is much more applicable in areas as without light.

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ELECTRONICS & COMPUTER ENGINEERING Electronics and Computer Engineering at Massey Engineering incorporates electronics, information and signal processing, computer engineering and, telecommunications and networks. Students become skilled in the development and application of electronic and computer systems, both hardware and software, in industrial and commercial contexts.

Graduates in Electronics & Computer Engineering can be found in a range of occupations including systems programming, network operations and management, performance analysis and project management.

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Zehuan Geng

New Plymouth Boys’ High School Major: Electronic and Computer Engineering Supervisor: A/Prof Donald Bailey

Human detection and tracking for video surveillance This project implements software that is able to detect and track the position of humans in videos and can be used as a part of a video surveillance system. The software uses the open source computer vision library OpenCV. Images are acquired using webcams because of their common availability. Webcams can also be wirelessly connected to the home Wi-Fi network and be placed in different rooms or outside the house so users can monitor their homes and be alerted when there are people approaching, or use it to browse through past recordings of interesting events quickly.

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Indoor navigation by Wi-Fi This project is about finding a solution to the following problem: new students have difficulty finding their classrooms in the building. The application is developed using Java and it works on the Android platform - the most famous and common operating system for smartphones. The target users are the first year students and visitors.

The Ideal of the application is that when a user is inside the building, he or she can use this application to locate his/her current position in the building; then the application will suggest to the user the quickest route to the destination room. The application is based on the searchable Wi-Fi access points and it does not require actual connected Wi-Fi access.

Yeehin Kwok

Dannevirke High School Major: Computer and Electronic Engineering Supervisor: Dr Xiang Gui

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iPhone operated garage door Technological advancements such as Smartphones are positively affecting social, educational and communication aspects of our life. Research has shown that Smartphones have become a part of our society. Smartphones are like a mini computer with access to thousands of applications, email and media, right at your fingertips. It was evident in the user survey carried out that people do not leave home without their Smartphones, home/garage door key remotes and wallets. After extensive research on Smartphone uses and their users’ needs and demands, this project was developed to increase convenience to their users.

This project involved configuring Arduino microcontroller with the automatic garage door systems which allows users to operate and monitor their garage doors using apple gadgets (i.e. iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac). Most commercial options out in market are too expensive and required swapping out the whole garage door system in order for the door access to be controlled by Smartphone. This project can be integrated in the existing garage door systems and is a low cost solution to monitoring and accessing garage doors by multiple users.

Avani Patel

Lynfield College Major: Computer and Electronic Engineering Supervisor: Dr Rezaul Hasan

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Daniil Kedrinski

Westlake Boys High School Major: Electronic and Computer Engineering Supervisor: Dr Fakhrul Alam

Harvesting stray radio frequency emissions This project investigates the possibility of harvesting energy from the wireless signals transmitted by various radio devices. In today’s highly technological world a vast amount of information is transmitted wirelessly. Every wireless communication system needs to do a tradeoff between radiated power, complexity, throughput capacity and bandwidth. Older technologies like broadcast radio rely on high radiated power to ensure simple, affordable receiver at the subscriber end.

As a result they are perfect candidates for energy harvesting. There are also some newer technologies that are much more complex, and are also possible candidates. For example digital TV is much more complex than broadcast radio, but have a vastly larger capacity for data transmission. Because of this they must also radiate large amounts of power which could be harvested.

Although the energy radiated by modern short range technologies like WiFi and cell phone services are much smaller, the number of transmitters in any given area are much greater. This also makes them candidates for energy harvesting.

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Ryan McGurk

Mt Albert Grammar School Major: Computer and Electronic Engineering Supervisor: Dr Andrew Guilman

Processing of biological images Manually counting and measuring bacteria in a biological image is a tedious and time consuming exercise which biologists perform on a regular basis. With recent advances in digital image processing it is natural to assume such tasks could be performed by a computer.

Digital image processing, however, is a large, complex and problem speciďŹ c ďŹ eld. Most of the software currently available to process biological images relies on a large amount of user input. This project aims to develop a set of Matlab algorithms to minimize user input and automate the bacteria counting process as much as possible.

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Smart emergency door The aim of this project is to create a smart emergency door making use of various sensors and an electromagnetic lock. The system design will make the door behave accordingly to certain situations such as, introducing a delay when no emergency is taking place, or if an emergency was occurring there is no time delay and occupants can safely exit the building. The system has been conďŹ gured around Arduino microcontroller board based on the ATmega328P-PU.

Johann Nel

UCOL Major: Electronic and Computer Engineering Supervisor: Prof Subhas Mukhopadhyay

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HuaFeng (Lucy) Guo

Major: Electronic and Computer Engineering Supervisor: Dr Frazer Noble

Mobile wallet This final year project provides an alternative for people, using their mobile phone, to access their money when they have left their wallet at home.

The project consists of two parts: an online service, where new users register themselves and transfer money between their bank account and their online balance; and the mobile application, where the users carry the mobile balance, in addition to a list of their cards, e.g. credit, bank, and identification cards.

When using the mobile application, each user can request funds from the online balance to be transferred to the mobile balance. Payments to third parties can then be made using the mobile phone’s near field communication (NFC) chip and a corresponding payment terminal, e.g. EFTPOS or other mobile. In addition, the mobile application is able to store images of each of the user’s cards.

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Real-time video processing on FPGA It takes a large amount of computational power to perform real-time digital video processing using traditional computing methods; this means that low-power devices, such as smart security cameras and cell phones are unable to offer this. As a solution to this problem this project is endeavouring to design an embedded video processing system using custom hardware built on a Field-programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform.

Altera T-Pad development board is used to build a prototype system. The T-Pad hosts a Cyclone IV FPGA chip, a 5 MPix digital camera and a colour touch-screen LCD module. The project consists of 4 main sections: the camera I2C control interface, camera data interface, image processing ďŹ lters, and VGA output for the screen.

Ashton Gardiner

Long Bay College Major: Computer and Electronic Engineering Supervisor: Dr Andrew Gilman

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Road roughness logger The focus of this project is to explore the feasibility of using the inertial response of a vehicle to measure the road surface proďŹ le and from that calculate the roughness index. The project is based around an accelerometer and microcontroller to collect the response data from which the surface proďŹ le is derived. The response of the accelerometer was measured and compared with an ultrasonic distance sensor using a test rig.

The system is also equipped with a GPS (Global Positioning System) module which helps to locate the position of the measurement system on a Google map.

The long term vision is to build a system combining a network of portable, low-cost devices which can measure the roughness level of a road (on the International Roughness Index scale) with a computer mapping application for viewing and monitoring the collated data.

Cameron Jones

Wanganui High School Major: Electronics and Computer Systems Supervisor: A/Prof Gourab Sen Gupta

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Siti Farah Lokman

MARA College Seremban, Malaysia Major: Electronics and Computer System Supervisor: Prof Subhas Mukhopadhyay

Low cost N-P-K sensor The project was to design and develop a new type of soil sensor.

This project was intended to invent a novel low-cost N-P-K sensor which is to determine the amount of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) in soil. This sensor has been based on electrical and electromagnetic concepts. Different soil sensors were researched, designed and tested at different conditions to obtain the optimum sensing element. The N-P-K sensor is easily connected to the computer and consumer can test the needed sample soil. Nutrient level in the soil will be collected and analysed.

The result will appear to the customer and it will show the amount of N, P and K in the soil. These results will be useful to the farmers to apply the right amount of fertilizers and/or other nutrients to the soil without incurring any penalty from the city council. This new type of sensor is low cost and can readily show desired results to the farmers which will be more convenient to the farmers, more cost effective process and will cut all other unnecessary processes.

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Elliot Hathaway

Reporoa College Major: Electronics and Computer Systems Supervisor: A/Prof Jens Dietrich

Primegame: A web-based educational programming game The aim of this project was to create a web-based implementation of the PrimeGame, a novel, game-based programming tool. The game, used by student software developers, combines a wide variety of computer science skills, including mathematical modeling, algorithm design and programming, into a small and manageable setting.

Being web-based it will enable users to easily create and run programs to play the PrimeGame against other interested parties and to participate in tournaments all over the world without having to install special client software. A particular engineering challenge of this project was the development of a security model in order to prevent injection attacks.

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Raspberry pi as a multimedia and network device Since its release Raspberry Pi has been creating buzz in the field of Personal Computer and Multimedia industries. But being in its early days it is difficult to find the benefits, limitations and drawbacks of Raspberry Pi. The aim of this project is to investigate Raspberry Pi as multimedia and network device. First part of the project investigates Raspberry Pi as a Personal Computer, Media Player, Personal Web-Server, Personal Drop-box clone and low-powered Network Storage Device. The second half of the project implements an audio streaming technique in a small server client based network using Raspberry Pi. The project findings would be a useful source of information and a base to developers for furthermore research in the area of multimedia and network using Raspberry Pi.

Bhim Dulal

Godawari College, Nepal Major: Telecommunication and Network Engineering Supervisor: Dr Amal Punchihewa

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Mohamed Al Hinai

Al Ibdaa Major: Telecommunications and Networking Engineering Supervisor: Dr Amal Punchihewa

Quality of light analyser; algorithm development The project aims to investigate and develop an alternative and a cost effective method to estimate the colour temperature of light/illumination sources, which would be affordable to a general user. The proposed approach has shown promising results when compared to professional colour meters, and it provides reliability that is adequate for providing estimates to be used in photography or in research work related to quality of light.

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Indoor geo location based on RSSI GPS is ineffective for indoor position location. This project aims to develop an algorithm to determine the position of an indoor wireless device based on the received signal strength of the device. We are currently investigating how to ďŹ nd the location of a node within a zigbee network using RSSI (received signal strength information) and trilateration.

Evan Gordon

Long Bay College Major: Electronics and Communication Engineering Supervisor: Dr Fakhrul Alam

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The Gecko Gecko feet are covered in little hairs. Each hair is about 200 to 500 nanometers wide. The adhesive power of a centimeter of gecko foot is about 10 Newtons. The he principles of the Gecko feet have formed the foundation dation for the development of Gecko tape, which is projected d to have a wide range of industrial applications due to its strength, trength, ease of removal and lack of residue.

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Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering New Zealand’s economy is strongly based on adding value to bio-derived materials through processing.

Traditional export industries are increasingly looking to innovations in biotechnology and nanotechnology to develop processes for new products or ingredients from New Zealand resources.

Graduates in Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering are found in a wide range of chemical and bioprocessing industries worldwide. They hold positions as process engineer, production manager, consulting engineer and chemical engineer.

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Allan Yeung

Palmerston North Boys’ High School Major: Biotechnology Supervisor: Prof John Bronlund

Prediction of dark-cutting beef with an infrared camera Dark cutting is a term to describe meat that shows characteristics of dark red/ purplish black coloured meat.

Dark cutting meat is undesirable for consumers as it is seen as low quality product with a reduced shelf life.

Dark cutting occurs when an animal’s muscle glycogen reserves are low prior to slaughter. Lactic acid build up during anaerobic glycolysis is insufficient to lower the pH of the carcass from 7.2 to approximately 5.7. Stressed animals deplete their muscle glycogen reserves and are more likely to produce dark cutting meat.

Infrared cameras may possibly provide a method in predicting which animals is stressed. The purpose of this project was to investigate the use of infrared cameras in a beef processing plant to identify dark cutting meat, and ways it can be implemented in current slaughter practices.

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Process optimisation of a yoghurt starter Yoghurt is one of the fastest growing dairy segments globally, providing many nutritional beneďŹ ts to the general public. It is widely known that a variety of probiotic cultures are present in yoghurt which is important for maintaining good intestinal health.

Currently, Fonterra Co-operative Group is looking at the technology to increase the yield and biomass of Lactobacillus acidophilus... Lactobacillus acidophilus is one of these probiotic cultures that are found in yoghurt that needs to be produced. It is a difďŹ cult bacteria to grow to high numbers in standard milk media and only low numbers survive freeze drying.

The production of freeze dried starter cultures requires the growth of bacteria to high cell densities, addition of suitable cryoprotectants to ensure survival during freezing, and also recovery of viable cells after freeze drying. Activity tests and shelf life studies will determine the stability of the freeze dried product. This project aims to develop, test and optimise different fermentation and production conditions for its use as a freeze dried yoghurt starter.

Ritchie En

Awatapu College Major: Biotechnology Supervisor: A/Prof Pak-Lam Yu, Mr Andrew Patrick

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Impact of night respiration on microalgae productivity Microalgae have many applications due to their unique and interesting biochemical properties. However, their large scale production is limited by high production costs. During photosynthesis, microalgae typically harness sunlight energy and carbon dioxide to regenerate ATP and NAD(P)H and synthesize carbohydrates and other biomass precursors. Up to 36% of the biomass produced during daytime can however be lost through heterogeneous (endogenous) respiration at night, which considerably impact biomass productivity.

This project aims to understand the mechanisms of dark endogenous respiration in microalgae in order to identify potential means for decreasing night biomass loss.

This project also seeks to determine if night biomass loss is a function of day-time cell biochemical composition and can be manipulated via changes in day-time cultivation conditions.

Photo Acknowledgement: David Wiltshire, Massey University

Jenica Bhatiya

Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology Major: Biotechnology Supervisor: A/Prof Benoit Guieysse

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Jennie Feast

Cambridge High School Major: Biotechnology Supervisor: A/Prof Pak-Lam Yu and Mr Andrew Patrick

Production of freeze-dried yeast for ethanol fermentation Currently the Microbial Fermentation Unit (MFU) located at the Palmerston North Fonterra Research and Development Centre (FRDC) supplies frozen pottles of yeast to the Tirau site for ethanol production. The issue with these frozen pottles is that they have a limited shelf life of only 6 months and that during the freezing process, up to 99% of cells are killed.

The MFU is therefore seeking a more effective way of ďŹ rstly, freezing the yeast to get a better survival and secondly, of taking the frozen yeast and producing a freeze dried powder. As a result, the storage, transportation and distribution of yeast will be improved.

The key objective of this project is to optimise the cell recovery of the yeast used in the Tirau ethanol production process. Cells will be grown, concentrated and subjected to freezing and ultimately freeze drying. The overall aim is to maximise the number of viable yeast cells remaining after these production processes which can then be used for ethanol production. As well as this, it is important to ensure that the freeze dried yeast has a reasonable shelf life.

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Jamie Howarth

Central Hawkes Bay College Major: Chemical and Nanotechnology Supervisor: Dr Karl Dahm

Modifying the hydrophobicity of titanium surfaces My research project was to alter the hydrophobicity of titanium dioxide (TiO2) grown on titanium surfaces. These TiO2 surfaces are hydrophilic, which makes them unsuitable for use in many industries. By adding a monolayer of a hydrophobic chemical it creates a surface that repels water. This allows it to be used in the same way as stainless steel, with the beneďŹ t of being much harder and more durable. In addition, the chemical reaction is able to be completely reversed using UV light. By creating patterns of light on a treated TiO2 surface it will be possible to have separate hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions.

Photo Caption: Water drops on Ti02. Samples oxidised at 500oC, 600oC, and room temperature.

500oC = sample 1 600oC= Sample 3 Room temperature = sample 5

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Predictive model for sugar formation during mashing The amount of craft beer being developed in New Zealand is growing and the demand for new and exciting beers is on the rise. For many brewers the alcohol/sugar balance the beer is vitally important parameter, and the correct composition is crucial. The alcoholic content of a beer is determined in the mashing stage where fermentable sugars and unfermentable dextrins are formed through the breakdown of starch by amylases.

Cereal, especially malts are used in this process to supply the starch. To get the desired composition, many brewers conduct several small scale test brews to determine the correct amount of cereal to use. This can be timely and costly. A predictive model was developed that predicts sugar formation with time and temperature and can be used by brewers to estimate the amount of grain required.

A simple methodology for the brewer to estimate the input parameters was also developed. A successful model and method should allow brewers to reduce the amount of test brews required.

Arron Cox

Palmerston North Boys’ High Major: Chemical Engineering and Nanotechnology Supervisor: Prof John Bronlund

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Mohammad Abusidou

Palmerston North Boys’ High School Major: Chemical and Nanotechnology Supervisor: A/Prof Mark Waterland, Prof John Bronlund

Scale up of graphene manufacture This project is aimed at the scale up of the manufacture of graphene and graphene like materials. Graphene is a nanomaterial combining very simple atomic structure with complex and unexplored physics. Graphene is a thin flat sheet of carbon only 1 atom thick and has fascinating properties; it is one of the strongest materials ever known and is completely flexible and highly conductive. With the scale up of graphene production, this would mean that we could enhance its properties as it has only been made in the small scale. This could mean large opportunities in the electronics field in the future as a potential power source and has many other applications. This is a scoping project as it has not been attempted before at this scale.

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Designing a fully automated bench scale brewery It all started with “craft breweries” then it progressed to the “micro”, the “nano” and all the way down to the “atto” brewery. The “semi-atto” is aimed at batch sizes around the 5 L mark. The driving force behind this “miniaturization” of breweries is flexibility. Brewers want to experiment with finding the right brew for their very small markets, even customizing brews for small groups or individuals and being able to offer something new on a regular basis. The problem exists that most craft and home brew beers are brewed manually. In the brewhouse, preparing grains and making the wort ready for fermentation can take up to a full day.

The aim of this project was to minimise the time needed to operate the brewhouse on a bench scale so as craft and home brewers are able to experiment with minimal labour input. With a fully automated small scale atto brewery these brewers can experiment on all of these differentiated brews without the cost of larger scale nano brews and with minimal labour input.

Dan Cummins

Palmerston North Boys’ High School Major: Chemical and Nano Technology Supervisor: Prof John Bronlund and Mr Ralph Ball

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Biofuel for aircraft engines With the rapidly growing energy demand in transportation and concern over the long term supply of petroleum, utilising alternative fuels is recognised as the most feasible way to meet the demand. This project will look at the potential to produce biofuel from palm oil for aircraft engines.

In this project, biofuel is produced from palm oil via transesteriďŹ cation reactions. The aim of the project is to undertake a feasibility assessment of the production of biofuel from palm oil, which can be used in blends with aviation fuel. The assessment will include evaluation of technical requirements, social, economic and environmental inputs.

Mardhiah Kasim

International Education Centre (INTEC) Major: Chemical and Nanotechnology Supervisor: Prof Clive Davies and Dr Colin Brown

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Jolin Morel

Palmerston North Boys’ High School Major: Chemical and Nano Technology Supervisor: Prof Jim Jones

Prototyping of a novel coating system Micro-encapsulation is the process of treating particles in the micrometre size range to surround them with a coating that give the particle useful properties that an uncoated particle would not have. The process is widely used in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Some of the applications for micro-encapsulation include: stabilisation of drugs or products that are sensitive to oxygen, moisture or light; reducing the volatility of a coated substance; controlling the release of a coated substance; masking the taste or odour of unpalatable ingredients in food, or pharmaceuticals; or to control the solubility of particles (such as coating water insoluble pigments to develop water based inks).

A team at the Riddet Institute at Massey University have developed a novel method for micro-encapsulation. This method has the potential to be more efficient in terms of both time and materials than existing methods and results in a more even particle coating. For my fourth year project I will evaluate alternative configurations for a prototype system, decide on an appropriated configuration, test the feasibility, and design and construct a prototype.

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Leo Lai

ACG Strathallan College Major: Chemical and Nanotechnology Supervisor: Prof Tony Paterson

Spray drying of a fruit extract This project is being conducted for New Zealand Pharmaceuticals Ltd. The company manufactures pharmaceutical and biotechnology products from its location near the city of Palmerston North. The aim of this project is to find the optimum conditions for spray drying an anthocyanin rich extract to produce a free flowing powder.

The goal of the project is to maximise the yield of the extract from the spray dryer, minimise the loss of anthocyanin in the extract during the process and minimise the moisture content of the final product.

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Adhesive interactions between a film and a particle This project uses the Massey Institute of Fundamental Sciences atomic force microscope to measure the force-distance interactions between a small particle ~20μm as it approaches a thin film of coating solution.

Particle coating is an important physical process for many industries for a range of reasons including: to protect core particle materials from degradation, to modify surface properties, to affect bulk flow properties, or to tailor release properties.

Atomic force microscopes (AFMs) are a form of scanning probe microscopy used to create height images of surfaces by measuring the deflection of a cantilever as it is raster scanned across a surface. The application of the AFM here, however, is to measure force-distance curves which provide information about the affinity (attractive and repulsive forces) experienced by a probe as it approaches a surface. The aim of this project was to develop a method that could be used to quantitatively measure the affinity of a coating solution film to a particle and the affect that surfactants would have on this affinity. The end use of such a method would be optimising coating processes.

Morgan Vine

Reporoa College Major: Chemical and Nanotechnology Supervisor: Prof Jim Jones

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Craig Kirwan

Wairoa College Major: Chemical and Nanotechnology Supervisor: Prof Jim Jones

Secondary char formation during pinus radiata pyrolysis Efforts are being made to mitigate climate change and ocean acidification by limiting anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and developing ways to sequester carbon. One option is to use pyrolysis to produce biochar which can be integrated into soil to sequester atmospheric CO2 and improve soil fertility.

Pyrolysis is the thermochemical decomposition of organic material under anaerobic conditions. When an organic sample such as wood is subjected to a heating profile, it decomposes through first order pyrolysis kinetics to from primary char, tar, and volatile gases.

The tar can decompose further through secondary vapour-phase pyrolytic reactions producing secondary char.

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This project aimed to investigate the decomposition of Pinus radiata during pyrolysis and identify the volatile compounds produced.

Particular emphasis was placed on identifying the difference in products formed by primary and secondary reactions to better understand the role that the secondary vapour-phase reactions play in char formation. This information is required to determine the maximum possible char yields which will help identify whether or not the process can be considered a financially viable option for carbon sequestration.

Hot stage for pyrolysis This project investigates the tar formation mechanism during pyrolysis of Pinus radiata wood, particularly whether it forms directly as a gaseous phase then condenses to oil, or it forms as liquid which later volatilises. The project mainly uses a device called a Hot Stage, where the wood sample is placed on a heated plate and observed from above and below as it is heated in the absence of oxygen. Using a microscope, colour, wood structure and the appearance of tar will be observed as a function of temperature and time for slow pyrolysis, that is, where temperature gradients of less than several tens of degrees per minute.

The outcomes of this project will ďŹ rst help us understand the formation kinetics of tars. This understanding will help optimise the reactions during pyrolysis depending on the desired split of gas, tar or char. The particular focus at Massey is on optimising the yield of char for biochar, which is applied to soil to improve soil function as well as to sequester carbon to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Hani Afia Mohd Hanif

International Education Centre, Malaysia Major: Chemical and Nano Technology Supervisor: Prof Jim Jones and Mr Georg Ripberger

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Developing a phosphorus filter With the rapid decline in phosphorus supply worldwide, more research has been focused on recovering phosphorus from waste streams. Phosphorus lost to waterways through wastewater discharge is of particular concern, as this phosphorus is almost impossible to recover, and also causes significant negative impacts on the environment.

The focus of this project has been to identify potential materials that can capture phosphorus from wastewater, which in turn allows the phosphorus to be recovered for reuse. This substance can then be converted into a filter to be placed at the end of a wastewater treatment process – a “phosphorus filter”.

Current investigations surround the phosphorus removal achievable by these materials, and whether these materials would be effective in a filter.

Aidan Crimp

Kuranui College Major: Environmental Technology and Sustainable Energy Supervisor: Prof Andy Shilton and Dr Nicola Brown

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Sue Chok

Palmerston North Girls’ High School Major: Environmental Technology and Sustainable Energy Supervisor: Prof Jim Jones

Mass and energy balance of pyrolysis Pyrolysis is the decomposition of biomass at high temperatures.

It occurs in the absence of air and produces three combustible products: bio-char, tarry-oil and non-condensable gases. With the current focus on renewable energy, pyrolysis may prove to be an economical and sustainable way to produce energy.

The products also have other applications. Bio-char has been found to improve soil quality and chemicals can be recovered from the tar.

This project seeks to quantify the mass and energy balance of pine wood pyrolysis in a batch drum reactor.

By changing the peak temperature the wood reaches, the energy and mass yield of the products will change.

Energy in the products was measured by their calorific values. Past studies have only focussed on the energy and mass yield of the bio-char and tar. To be able to quantify all streams, a gas calorimeter was designed to measure the calorific value of the noncondensable gases. This project will be relevant in the industrial design of a pyrolysis plant, which may require the optimisation of one of these products.

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Aden Fareh

Awatapu College Major: Environmental Technology and Sustainable Energy Supervisor: Prof John Bronlund

Optimised operational drying model for biophive ltd Biophive Limited is a company in Fielding that produces various pet treats, including some innovative products. The company exports the majority of its products to the United States, where there is greater demand.

The project consisted of two parts: to research the composition of the target by-products and their dehydration; and to produce an optimised operational model, i.e. optimal product thickness, dryer air speed, humidity and temperature, that will produce a product to a target water activity whilst maximising retained moisture. The optimised conditions were then validated at commercial scale at the Biophive plant.

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Phosphorus removal from wastewater using algae Phosphorus removal is becoming increasingly important in wastewater treatment. High levels of phosphorus in the effluent of wastewater can cause problems such as eutrophication of waterways and of more increasing importance, loss of a valuable product. Large treatment facilities have technology available to effectively remove phosphorus, but often smaller communities only have waste stabilisation ponds (WSP’s) which have largely varying phosphorus removal efficiencies.

The research conducted in this project is aimed at identifying factors which will optimise the phosphorus removal in WSP’s, in particular using algae. Algae are present in WSP’s, but it is currently unclear what affects the phosphorus uptake. It has been proposed that certain environmental factors will influence the uptake and can cause a process of luxury uptake where the algae consume more phosphorus than required for normal growth. Batch experimentation has been conducted to identify the effect of different factors.

Using the information from the batch experimentation, a new process was tested which aimed to maximise phosphorus uptake. With further research this process could be used to upgrade ponds for phosphorus removal in the future.

Matthew Sells

Trident High School, Whakatane Major: Environmental Technology and Sustainable Energy Supervisor: Dr Nicola Brown and Prof Andrew Shilton

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The Squid How does a squid, whose body is soft and supple, upple, have a beak that is considered on of the hardest organic materials in natures? s? Here you have a ‘cutting tool’ that’s extremely hard and stiff at its tip and is attached hed to a material – the muscular buccal mass – that has the consistency of Jell-O. O.

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FOOD TECHNOLOGY New Zealand’s economy is largely reliant on the production and export of food products. As such, adding value to raw products like milk, meat and fruits are paramount to maintaining growth in New Zealand. Food Technology encompasses core science and engineering to take raw ingredients and convert them to highly valuable and sort after products.

With a broad knowledge of the food industry, Food Technology graduates are well respected in industry and ďŹ ll a wide range of roles from new product development to manufacturing and process improvement positions.

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Rebecca Lock Opunake High School Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Alistair Carr

Innovative berryfruit product This project was aimed at developing a new, innovative, healthy product for a berryfruit company that currently sell a range of conventional products in addition to fresh and frozen berries.

Berries have been growing in popularity over the last few years due to their great taste and healthy nature. They are known to contain bioactive components such as anthocyanins and polyphenolics that are associated with numerous health benefits.

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The product developed for the company utilises proprietary technology to concentrate the bioactive components which can then be blended in certain fractions to obtain an optimised berry flavour and goodness profile. The product needs to be shelf stable and acceptable for both New Zealand and targeted International markets.

50 Years of Food Technology Commemorative Pilsner Established in 1963, the year 2013 sees the 50th anniversary of the teaching of Food Technology at Massey University, now including food science, food engineering and food business. During these past 50 years, there have been significant improvements in processing facilities available at the university, including the construction of the Massey Micro-brewery.

This was commissioned on April 4th 2008, with the first ever micro-brewed beer to be produced by a New Zealand University – ‘Pilot Pils’.

In celebration of the Micro-brewery, and to commemorate 50 years of the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Human Health at Massey University, a modern New Zealand variation of a traditional Bavarian Pilsner Lager is being developed. The original ‘Pilot Pils’, was described as being “not perfect, but not bad” for the first attempt at reproducing the crisp, clean flavours characteristic of Pilsner Lagers.

This 50th anniversary Pilsner will be made using a range of New Zealand hops including Nelson Sauvin, Riwaka, Motueka and Pacific Jade and will be characterised primarily by rich, fruity hop characteristics and a medium bodied mouth feel.

Luke Larsen

Mount Maunganui College Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Mr Allan Hardacre

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Development of a cream cheese base The aim of this project is to develop a low fat cream cheese product capable of meeting the heart foundation tick requirements. This cream cheese composition is to be used as the base of a novel avoured cream cheese spread developed for children and with the aim of being a healthier alternative to spreads which are currently on the market. To achieve this, a high protein base formula will be developed. The high protein component will not only have nutritional beneďŹ ts, but will be required to compensate for removal of fat in terms of achieving appropriate structure, material and sensory properties.

Stuart Hall

Rangiora High School Major: Food Technology Supervisor: A/Prof Matt Golding

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Angus Neilson

Palmerston North Boys’ High School Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Mr Michael Parker

Shelf life stability of a protein concentrate Evidence has shown that the co-ingestion of protein and carbohydrates can reduce the recovery time from strenuous exercise. This information led to the development of a product that could help athletes to maximize their recovery by providing the correct amount of water, protein, carbohydrates, and electrolytes. It was found that the product that had been developed was not shelf stable due to the precipitation of the protein and carbohydrates within the solution.

The aim of this project was to determine the causative agent(s) and fix the problem so that the product would become shelf stable. Sensory analysis was also conducted to determine whether the changes to the formulation had significantly modified the perceived flavour of the product.

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Tao Liang

He Fei World Foreign Language School Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Prof Tony Paterson

Spray y dry meyer lemon juice This proje project was aimed at finding the spray dryer conditions needed tto dry concentrated Meyer lemon juice into a free flow owing powder. The project included finding the compositional analysis of Meyer lemon juice, prediction of compo glass transition temperature from that analysis and pilot the gla plant scale trials. Meyer lemon juice has a high sugar and orga organic acid content causing the stickiness in the spray drying dryi process.

A sspread sheet was used to predict the non-sticky zone ba based on the glass transition temperature of the final p powder.

In order to produce a free flowing powder aafter spray drying the juice an anti-sticky agent in the form of maltodextrin had to be added. The amount used was crucial as was the temperature in the spray dryer. A non-sticky powder was produced when maltodextrins were added and the spray drier was run at it optimum operating conditions.

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Improving the shelf life of milk products This project aims to investigate the use of an alternative process for the treatment of milk in the manufacture of products such as cultured foods (e.g. yogurt/sour cream) and dairy foods. There is a strong interest in the dairy industry to produce milk products with a longer shelf life than conventionally pasteurised milk, yet not having the “burnt” flavour characteristics of UHT milk.

An alternative confidential process has been developed to achieve this goal.

It is hypothesised that the new process will increase the shelf life through decreasing the rate of microbial growth and reducing the rate of loss in sensory quality. The main goal of this project were to conduct shelf life tests to determine if a difference exists in the products made from milk processed in a traditional manner and milk processed with the alternative process.

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Kaushik S.J.

The Shri Ram School, India Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Mr Michael Parker

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Shi Yi Lim

Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Mr Allan Hardacre

A novel foaming agent for food In the food industry stable food foams are very important in developing the texture of many products due to their delicate structure and mouth feel. Bubbles in food are also recognised as a healthier food by consumers as they will consume fewer calories for the same volume of food.

A novel foaming agent has been discovered by previous projects conducted by Massey University. This foaming agent is capable of producing stable foam with extremely high foam expansion which will be valuable for food systems. In this project, the foaming agent was found to make stable foams with high expansion.

This foaming agent was then incorporated into diverse food products including ice cream and pancakes. The agent signiďŹ cantly improved the texture of a zero fat ice-cream but not the pancakes.

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Preservative system for carbonated drinks Antimicrobial agents are used to control the growth of microorganisms, in order to preserve products during storage and are conventionally and widely used in the beverage industry.

The aim of the project was to investigate the potential of using other antimicrobial agents (preservative systems), such as sodium hexametaphosphate and dimethyl dicarbonate in carbonated soft drinks, that can be used without affecting the existing products’ sensory qualities and that maintain the antimicrobial activity without being affected by beverage formulations, such as pH, Brix and carbon dioxide.

Neala Ye

Saint Kentigern College Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Sung Je Lee

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Ethyl cellulose stabilised water-in-oil emulsions Water-in-oil emulsions are common food systems in the industry. Butter, margarine and fat spreads are examples of such food emulsion systems. The use of saturated fats and trans fats have been traditional methods to ensure its solid state at room temperature yet with melt-in-the-mouth ability.

However, there has been rising health concerns regarding the consumption of saturated and trans fats, whilst on the other hand, mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids have been shown to reduce health risks like cardiovascular diseases.

This has given rise to the needs of alternatives in the stabilization and structuring of liquid-like mono- and poly-unsaturated triglyceride continuous emulsions.

Recently, research has explored into the use of organogels, where compounds are capable of gel formation in organic solvents or liquid oil. Ethyl cellulose is a novel additive that may be in this capacity.

The aim of the project was to evaluate the formation, stability and rheological properties of water-in-oil emulsions with the use of ethyl cellulose. This will form the basis for forming solid-like structures to create “healthier fat spreads�.

Dennis Tay

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: A/Prof Matt Golding and Dr Lara Matia-Merino

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Tai Hiang Jeremy Ng Palmerston North Boys’ High School Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Trinh Khanh Tuoc

Development of moody diagram for non-newtonian fluids Calculation of energy losses in pipe flow is important in the design of operations involving pumping and transport. This allows engineers to determine the size of pumps and piping to be used. The energy losses are calculated as pressure drop using a term called “friction factor”. In 1944, an American engineer, Lewis Moody developed a diagram which allows the convenient calculation of friction factors at different flow rates, pipe diameters and pipe surfaces. Thereafter, the diagram became widely used and is named as the “Moody diagram”.

However, this diagram only applies to Newtonian fluids where their viscosity is not affected by the flow rate in pipes. In the food industry, most food products such as sauces and semi solid suspensions are non-Newtonian which implies that their viscosity is affected by flow rate. Therefore, the original Moody diagram could only be used as an approximation in the calculation of energy losses for such fluids.

The aim of this project is to therefore develop a Moody diagram which applies to non-Newtonian fluids.

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Wing Kit Loh

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Prof Steve Flint

Sharklet technology to prevent dairy biofilms Biofilm is defined as microorganisms attached and growing on a surface, in an extracellular polymeric matrix. Biofilm protects microbial cells from the external environment, making the microbial cells resistant to antimicrobial treatments. The presence of biofilm on equipment used in the food industry results in the contamination of food with micro-organisms that can cause food spoilage or food poisoning.

Sharklet technology is a proprietary material with a micro-structure that mimics the patterns on the shark skin. The structure of shark skin is s known to inhibit the attachment and growth of algae & parasites.

Sharklet technology is used on ship hulls and medical equipment to prevent biofilms.

The aim of this project was to evaluate the effect of Sharklet in preventing biofilms of bacteria isolated from the dairy industry. The Sharklet surface showed some ability to limit the growth of Pseudomonas and Streptococcus bacteria but was not so successful with others. This is hypothesised to be due to the variation in size of the microbial cells.

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Development of an extruded breakfast cereal No extruded or dry ready-to-eat (RTE) infant breakfast cereals are sold on the New Zealand market. RTE infant cereals are more convenient than cook up cereals such as traditional oat porridge or wheat semolina cereals as they do not have to be heated prior to consumption. The convenience of RTE cereals and their acceptance in other countries suggests that a market gap may exist for this type of product in New Zealand.

The objectives of this project are to create an extruded RTE cereal product that is soft enough for infants to consume that also incorporates a range of essential nutrients that are beneďŹ cial for infant growth. Other factors considered during this project included product size and dimensions (to avoid choking by infants) and the packaging format. The packaging must appeal to parents and be convenient while keeping the product fresh.

Casey Lynch

Hamilton Girls’ High School Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Mr Allan Hardacre

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Sarah Beaton Westlake Girls High School Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr John Grigor

Low-fat greek style yoghurt The aim of my project was to develop a low-fat Greek style yoghurt with comparable sensory and rheological properties as a traditional strained Greek yoghurt. The straining process removes the whey portion of the yoghurt and concentrates the protein content to give a thick, creamy product. The challenge was to develop a Greek style yoghurt without using the straining method. This required research and application into functional ingredients that could provide a thick, creamy product that was also low in fat.

A trained panel was used to analyse the experimental design phase, before a small number of formulations were optimised at pilot plant scale. Consumer evaluation was used to determine the ďŹ nal formulation that was most preferred.

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Contact nucleation studies on α-lactose monohydrate Lactose is a major ingredient in the pharmaceutical and food industries.

It is mainly produced in industrial evaporative crystallizers. Understanding the mechanisms of lactose crystallization is critical to controlling the crystal size, and thus maximising profitability. Lactose nucleation includes two mechanisms: primary nucleation (formation of new crystals) and secondary nucleation (the formation of crystals in the presence of seed crystals).

Secondary nucleation is a dominant mechanism in many industrial crystallizers.

It mainly involves collision and shear nucleation. Two types of collision are present in industry crystallizers: crystal-impeller and crystal-crystal.

This project focuses on the effect of contact nucleation. It aims to create a system which manipulates secondary contact nucleation in order to produce small uniform sized crystals. A rolling tube crystallizer with low kinetic energy was introduced to grow the nuclei. The effect of four parameters including supersaturation level, particle size, seed loading and rolling speed were investigated. It was found that there was significant secondary nucleation occurring from crystal-crystal contact, speed was not a significant factor influencing crystalcrystal contact nucleation, and secondary nucleation rate increased with increasing supersaturation level, particle size and percentage seed loading.

Dan (Cindy) Wu

Palmerston North Girls’ High School Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Prof Tony Paterson

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Investigating chicken breast fillet contamination during processing Raw chicken products can provide ideal environment for microbial contamination and growth. Potential contamination can occur during processing operations such as skinning, cutting, and deboning or from contact with contaminated surfaces that may contain high microbial loads.

The microbial quality of chicken products contributes to the final quality of processed products and their safety.

This project aims to examine the processing of skinless breast fillet with the purpose of identifying potential areas contributing to contamination of the product.

Esraa El Shall

Palmerston North Girls’ High School Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Tony Mutukumira

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Juliet Macias Clarke Carmel College Major: Food Technology Supervisor: A/Prof Marie Wong

Shelf life extension for fresh french fries Mr Chips produces fresh french fries that have a shelf life of 5 days. The short shelf life of Mr Chips products means that a fast turnover is required.

The aim of the project was to develop procedures to extend the shelf life of ‘fresh’ french fries from 5 days to 21 days. This was achieved by trialling different plastic packaging’s as well as modified atmosphere packaging (MAP). MAP involves the filling of the package holding the product with a preprepared mixture of gases commonly nitrogen and carbon dioxide to reduce microbial growth and deterioration reactions.

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Sarah Lewington King’s College Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Prof Steve Flint

Primary poultry processing tracking of Campylobacter spp.

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of campylobacteriosis in the developed world at 168 cases per 100,000 population (Baker, 2011). Fresh chicken meat has been identiďŹ ed as the dominant source of infection therefore it is imperative that Campylobacter spp. are removed through poultry processing.

Tegel Foods Ltd. wants to sample at the eight key points through primary poultry processing to determine Campylobacter spp. levels. This will improve the understanding of the process and set a benchmark for the Henderson site which can be referred to during periods where Campylobacter spp. levels are being consistently found at over 3.78 log10 cfu/carcass (Kennington, Hathaway, & Lee, 2006).

Through this project, a benchmark for the Henderson Tegel site for Campylobacter spp. levels through primary poultry processing has been established that will ensure Campylobacter spp. are under control and can be used as a guide for other processing sites.

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Identify and remove undesired viognier juice phenolics A special wine is desired to accompany the 50th Anniversary of Food Technology at Massey University. It was decided that a Viognier [Ve-onyay]/ Chardonnay blend would be produced for the occasion.

However, Viognier’s chemical proďŹ le is assumed to be dominated by undesirable phenolics. While some may be relatively innocuous others are; astringent and bitter. Astringency is the drying or puckering of the mouth, a sensation familiarized with eating green bananas, where as bitterness can be associated with tasting strong coffee. Both of these attributes are not desired and therefore various techniques to remove or reduce phenolics will be trialed. The resulting analysis will indicate which technique is best in terms of undesirable phenolic removal and desirable avour retention.

Justin Maher

Paraparaumu College Major: Food Technology Supervisor: A/Prof Steve Flint

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Campbell Ellison Orewa College Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Kylie Foster

Replacement of phosphates in chicken breast marinade Phosphates have been used in the poultry industry for many years to improve the tenderness and moistness of meat, whilst ensuring yields are optimised. However, phosphates have become undesirable due to negative health connotations.

This project aimed to develop a marinade with similar functionality using clean-label ingredients that are natural and familiar to consumers. This involved identifying the best functional ingredients based on storage and cooking losses, optimising the concentrations of these ingredients using sensory testing and texture analysis and then comparing the performance with the current marinades used.

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Comparison between commercial and homemade mayonnaise Traditionally, home-made mayonnaise is made without the use of any additives, as compared to commercially produced ones. This is due to home-made mayonnaise being made for immediate consumption as compared to the commercial ones which requires a longer shelf-life.

The project aims to understand the rheological properties of commercially available and homemade mayonnaise. By looking at such properties, the processes or ingredients affecting the difference might be identiďŹ ed. Hence, these processes or ingredients can be incorporated to other types of food.

Terrence See Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Tuoc Trinh

119

Whey protein and puka gum coacervation Puka gum is an exudate gum from Puka tree, Meryta sinclairii, which belongs to the family of Araliaceae. It is a native tall tree (up to 8m) that grows on the Three Kings Islands and the Hen and Chicken Island along the Northern coast of New Zealand (Sims & Furneaux, 2003). Not much is known about the interaction of this gum with milk proteins. Complex coacervation is also known as thermodynamic compatibility or associative phase separation.

It occurs when two biopolymers carry opposite charges interacts, leading to the formation of either a coacervate or precipitate (Tolstoguzov & McClements, 2007).

In this study, whey protein/puka gum coacervation process and coacervates were characterized under various physico-chemicals conditions. The particle size, zetapotental, turbidity during coacervation process and the rheological properties of the formed coacervates were investigated over a range of pH, between pH 3.0-7.0, and initial protein-polysaccharide ratio of 2:1 and 4:1. Techniques such as potentiometric titration, dynamic light scattering, electrophoresis coupled with laser doppler velocimetry, spectrophotometry, rheometry and microscopy were used

Kevin Tan

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Lara Matia-Merino and Miss May Wei (PhD student)

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Seng Guan Lim

Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Mr Rod Bennett

Deep-fried cheese curd Cheese curds are popular in Canada and North-Eastern and Mid-western United States. They are the freshest form of cheese that can be battered and deep-fried to be consumed as a snack.

Cheese curds produce a characteristic ‘squeak’ noise on chewing which is an important indicator of freshness. Over storage, the ‘squeakiness’ diminishes and the product becomes unappealing. However, it was found that ‘squeakiness’ can be restored by simply microwaving the cheese curd. The characteristics of this fascinating product would be of great interest to consumers.

This project aims to produce cheese curds and increase the shelf-life of cheese curds over refrigerated and frozen storage to at least 10 days and 3 months respectively. The product would be suitable for sale in restaurants, bars and cafes alongside French fries and potato wedges.

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Gertrude Then

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Prof Steve Flint and Ms Elham Khanipour

Clostridium Sporogenes growth – ph and emulsifier effects Pasteurised processed cheese products are low acid foods with a pH >4.6 and a water activity of > 0.85, thus ideal for microbial growth. Clostridium spp., anaerobic and sporeforming bacteria, are contaminants found in processed cheeses. Processed cheeses may be made safe by adding salt and preservatives such as nisin.

There is a consumer resistance to the use of high levels of salt and preservatives, but reducing these antimicrobial additives requires some alternative microbial control strategy. One approach is to use hurdle technology. Hurdle technology uses several mild treatments to prevent the growth of microorganisms.

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In this study, the effects of varying pH and emulsifier (JOHA S9) levels on the growth of C.sporogenes in processed cheese analogues were observed. The levels chosen for this study were based on earlier studies in broth culture. In this cheese trial, all pH and emulsifier combinations prevented the growth of C.sporogenes over four weeks of observation. Further sampling over a longer period of time will determine how C. sporogenes growth can be prevented.

Time-dependent fluid’s rheology influenced by continuousphase viscosity Many foods are time-dependent and it is important to characterise them for the control of quality, texture, shelf life and the design of processing equipment. The continuous phase viscosity of an emulsion can affect the products rheology. This project looked into the effect of continuous phase viscosity on breakdown and build-up of homemade mayonnaise. Gelatine was chosen to increase the continuous phase viscosity. A rig was used to recirculate the samples. However, it was found that the rig was poorly designed to handle viscous materials used in the project; resulting in inconsistent breakdown and build-up data obtained.

The samples were also sheared on rheometer using a cone-and-plate geometry.

This method showed a gradual breakdown of the samples as the shearing time increased. However, the rheological parameters of gelatine samples dropped faster than the traditional mayonnaise after shearing. This might be due to the interfacial interaction between gelatine and egg protein that weakened the holding force. Therefore, the materials should be carefully chosen so that it would not interact with the interfaces.

Phei Ching Siow Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Tuoc Trinh

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Hui Kheng Ching Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Saw Lin Kiat

Determination drying kinetics of okara Okara is a high value agrowaste that is rich in ďŹ bre and protein. However, fresh okara deteriorates rapidly due to its high moisture content. Drying is an effective method to prolong the shelf life of okara. Convective hot air drying process operating at 100-160oC was used to study the drying kinetics of okara.

This study show that the Guggenheum-Anderson-Boer (GAB) model was able to describe desorption isotherms of okara that are dried at 100-160oC adequately (R2 = 0.997). On the other hand, Page model can be used to describe the drying kinetics of okara (R2 = 0.999) at all drying conditions studied. Based on the model developed, the okara should be dried to around 9 wt.-% of moisture in order to bring its water activity to less than 0.6. This will take 90-155 minutes at the drying conditions used in this research.

The efďŹ ciency of the drying process ranged between 2%-4%. The physicochemical properties of okara, such as particle size distribution, moisture content, water activity, pH, particle density, colour, water and oil holding capacities had also been determined.

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Biofilm disassembly of Geobacillus Stearothermophilus The thermophilic bacilli, such as the Geobacillus spp. are one of the most common contaminants found in the manufacture of milk powder products due to their ability to form biofilms and survive heat treatments in their spore form. Although the early stages of biofilm formation of this bacterium have been studied, no work has been done on the disassembly of mature biofilm – the last stage in a biofilm life cycle. This project aimed to investigate biofilm disassembly of Geobacillus stearothermophilus strains A1, D1 and P3.

All of the strains grew rapidly on stainless steel. Biofilm morphologies were observed using scanning electron microscopy, showing strain D1 forming a flat biofilm, strain P3 forming a 3-dimensional biofilm and strain A1 somewhat in between.

A preliminary study showed that biofilms formed by strains A1 and P3 probably disassembled after 1 day while strain D1 did not show any obvious time for disassembly. This information can be used to identify when to look for factors that stimulate biofilm disassembly to be used to develop methods to control these biofilms.

Yi Sin Teng

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Prof Steve Flint and Miss Sara Burgess

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Extruded soy-protein high moisture meat analogue Meat analogues are foods that resemble meat in terms of texture and appearance but are made from soy or other vegetable protein. During this project, it was found that high quality protein-dense textured meat analogues with comparable moisture content to animal meat could be made using the Clextral BC-21 extruder ďŹ tted with a long temperature controlled slit die. By varying the screw speed and barrel temperature, the texture of the product can be varied from that similar to minced ďŹ sh through to chicken and pork roast.

The product can be handled like meat, avoured to suit and cooked prior to serving. The high consumer acceptability we found suggests that these products could be used in a wide range of applications that traditionally used meat. This technology could potentially accelerate the transition to the use of plant proteins and in turn, minimise world protein shortages.

Xin Mei Daphne Tay Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Mr Allan Hardacre

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Yong Seng Tan Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Patrick Janssen

Residence time distributions of heat treatment plants Heat treatment is a combination of temperature and duration of exposure. The latter is related to the residence time of the product within the heat treatment plant. Usually, the ideal condition is for each element of the product to undergo the same duration of exposure. In practice, the duration of exposure of individual elements of the product will vary resulting in what is known as the residence time distribution (RTD). The shape of the RTD curve for a particular situation is dependent on the properties of the fluid and the design of the equipment, e.g. a holding tube.

This project involved the study of the RTDs of holding tubes of different designs and that within the pilot scale ultra high temperature (UHT) plant using fluids of different properties. Conclusions drawn from this study are that increasing the viscosity of the fluid results in the widening of the RTDs and the use of bends and helical coils in holding tube construction results in the narrowing of the RTDs.

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Georgina, Xuan En Tan Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Tay Hong Soon

Investigating potential applications of brewer’s spent grain Brewer’s spent grain (BSG) was evaluated for its potential as a food ingredient. BSG obtained from Brewer Company was dried and milled into powder. It was sieved and fractionated into three types: Fine (<125μm), medium (125-250μm) and coarse grade (250-500μm). Chemical compositions, water retention and water holding capacities, and microbiological quality of BSG were analysed. With total dietary fibre content ranging from 48.74% to 60.03%, BSG is a potential source of dietary fibre in food products. Cookie was chosen as the application trials and the three BSG fractions were incorporated at 5, 15, 25 and 35%.

In general, addition of BSG resulted in increase in hardness and decrease in spread ratio, lightness and crispiness of cookies. From sensory evaluation results obtained, cookies incorporated up to 35% of coarse BSG were still accepted by panelists. However, maximum acceptable BSG level for cookies with fine and medium BSG was 25%.

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In the above study, it was found that BSG would be used as a high value food ingredient to increase nutritional value of food products.

Sulphur dioxide and red wine oxidation Wine maturation involves a series of complex oxidation reactions which either improve or deteriorate overall wine quality. Oxidation stabilises colour, improves ďŹ&#x201A;avour and mouth-feel by reducing the sensation of astringency and bitterness perceived in wine. However, excessive oxidation will result in detrimental odours and browning in wine.

Sulphur dioxide has both antioxidant and anti-microbial activity in wine and is added to counter such effects. Sulphur dioxide does not scavenge oxygen directly to prevent oxidation. Instead it reacts with oxidation intermediates formed to avoid further oxidation of other compounds in wine. This implies that the addition of sulphur dioxide will change the rate of oxidation of wine.

The purpose of this study is to understand and quantify the effect of sulphur dioxide on wine oxidation rate using a novel method. The results concluded that sulphur dioxide is capable of accelerating oxygen consumption rate in wine however; the increment is not linearly proportional to its concentration in wine.

This reďŹ&#x201A;ects the complexity of the oxidation mechanism taking place in wine.

Wei Ling Tan Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Colin Brown

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Bi Xue Tan

Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Mr Allan Hardacre

Extruded oat snacks with improved texture Oats are known for their health benefits and may lower blood cholesterol. Due to an increasing demand for snacks considered to be “healthier”, oat was used as a component in extruded puffed snacks. The desirable characteristics of a puffed snacks include high expansion, low density, with a crispy and crunchy texture. However, extruded snacks containing high level of oats are often low in expansion, high in density and hardness and are not acceptable to consumers as snack foods. Therefore, the aim of this project is to develop extruded snacks containing high level of oats with improved texture.

The addition of Herbacel was found to improve the expansion and texture of snacks containing 40% of oat bran. However, high cost of herbacel resulted in a snack containing 30% of oat bran that during this project was optimised by varying processing conditions. Consumer acceptability tests showed that although snacks containing 30% oat bran were significantly harder than commercial products, they were acceptable as snacks

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Paneer cheese manufacture from ultrafiltered milk Paneer cheese is prepared by heating the milk to 82°C to 90°C and coagulated with acid. It is very popular in Indian cuisine and often acts as a substitute for meat. Since it is a heat acid coagulated cheese product, the lactose present in the milk is not a critical component in paneer cheese making. Hence lactose from the milk could be retrieved from the permeate by an ultrafiltration process, and recovered to be sold as a valuable product for application in milk powder standardization or to the confectionary and pharmaceutical industries. It is more convenient to recover lactose from milk by ultrafiltration rather than in the whey stream after making the cheese.

This project studies the differences in the yield recovery, physical properties and sensory aspects when ultrafiltered milk retentate at higher total soluble solids concentration is used to make paneer. It was concluded that paneer made from ultrafiltered milk at higher total soluble solids concentration improved the yield of paneer in terms of its total solids recovery and was also firmer in texture.

Eunice Low

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Mr Rod Bennett

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Sulphite replacement in fresh sausages Sulphites are often used in fresh sausages for colour retention, and shelf life extension, through the inhibition of micro-organisms. The safety of sulphites in foods have been studied and concluded by the international scientiďŹ c committee to have no risk to most people in terms of health and safety.

However, there is an increase in sulphite-sensitive individuals, and the exposure to sulphites is reported to be able to induce a range of adverse effects from dermatitis, to life-threatening anaphylactic and asthmatic reactions. Hence, Purac and Hellers Limited are looking at replacing sulphite with lactic acid based antimicrobials in fresh sausages.

The objective of this project was to identify the type of packaging (PVC overwrap, high oxygen modiďŹ ed atmosphere packaging) and antimicrobials that can be used to replace sulphite in fresh sausages based on microbial growth, pH and colour, for a period of 21 days.

Anica Ong

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Jon Palmer

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Rinny

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: A/Prof Kelvin Goh and Dr Saw Lin Kiat

Rheological behavior of bopolymers mixtures The aim of this project was to characterise the rheological behaviour observed for mixed solution of tara gum and whey protein isolate (WPI). When 0.7% w/w of tara gum was mixed with 20% w/w WPI, the viscosity at shear rate of 50 s-1 increased by approximately half a decade as compared to 0.7% w/w tara gum solution. This was expected due to an increase in the total solids (i.e. addition of 20% WPI to 0.7% tara gum).

The biopolymers became more closely packed together and the resistance to ďŹ&#x201A;ow (viscosity) rose. However, further addition of WPI to 30% w/w in the presence of 0.7% w/w tara led to a drastic decrease in viscosity. The underlying mechanism was explained through phase stability, rheological measurements and microstructure of the mixtures. The reduction in viscosity with the addition of 20% to 30% w/w WPI was attributed to thermodynamic incompatibility as well as competition between tara gum and WPI for limited water present.

Consequently, tara gum was depleted from the system while WPI dominated the continuous phase. Such a system can be exploited in food systems such as high protein satiety beverages.

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Franceline Gladys Minardo Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Patrick Janssen

Manufacture of a high phospholipids ingredient There is a market developing for dairy ingredients with elevated phospholipid (PL) contents. The interest is high due to their emulsifying properties and the possible positive effects on human health. Unfortunately, the PL content of the current by-product of anhydrous milk fat (AMF) manufacturing process is still somewhat limited. A dilution or washing step has thus been suggested to be able to economically increase the PL content of the byproduct above the current range.

The aim of this project was to investigate the effect of simple modiďŹ cations to the AMF manufacturing process to the PL content of the by-product stream. The results obtained show that PL content increases with increasing dilution as this helps in reducing the concentration of solids-non-fat such as lactose, protein and minerals while maintaining PL concentration.

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Clostridium Sporogenes in processed cheese Spore forming Clostridium spp. are commonly associated with spoilage of processed cheese. Clostridium botulinum, however, is capable of producing a potentially fatal toxin. Salt (sodium chloride) is a common preservative found in processed cheese, but there is an increasing demand for low sodium products. Hurdle technology, the use of combined preservation factors, can be used to delay the growth of spoilage and potentially pathogenic micro-organisms.

This study evaluated how the water activity of processed cheese and storage temperature affect the growth of Cl. sporogenes. Trials were done using full factorial design, varying water activity (0.93, 0.95, 0.97) and storage temperature (14oC, 25oC, 37oC). The targeted microorganism was Cl. botulinum. However, its ability to produce fatal toxin makes it difďŹ cult to work with in laboratory trials.

Therefore, non-toxic Cl. sporogenes with similar growth characteristic was used as a surrogate for Cl. botulinum.

After 4 weeks of observation, it was found that the selected water activity and storage temperatures used during the study prevented the growth of Cl. sporogenes.

It is recommended to monitor the growth of Cl. sporogenes over a longer period to determine the extent of this growth inhibition.

Xue Li Ong

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Prof Steve Flint and Ms Elham Khanipour

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Si Yi Quek

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Colin Brown and Prof John Bronlund

Impact of oxygen supply rate on lipid oxidation Fats and oil are susceptible to oxidation which creates undesirable effects such as loss of sensory quality in terms of aroma, colour, taste and texture. It is important to study the rate of oxidation so that it can be effectively retarded or controlled to extend the shelf life of the product.

There are various factors that affect lipid oxidation such as availability of oxygen, nature of the substrate, temperature and presence of inhibitors or catalysts.

This project, quantiďŹ ed the effect of oxygen availability on oxidation rates in bulk oil systems. This project extended previous work and assisted the validation of mathematical models previously derived. It was found that the rate of oxidation of canola oil was proportional to the rate of oxygen supply from a headspace above the oil.

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Isolation and characterisation of peanut proteins Peanut milk is a popular beverage consumed in China. It is made from a blend of sugar, peanut paste and cow’s milk. A common problem with this beverage is that sediments could be observed if the beverage is left on the shelf. To date, little is known about the functionality of peanut proteins. Knowledge in the properties of peanut protein and its interactions with other food components is necessary to improve the stability of the beverage.

The aim of the study was to characterise the peanut protein fraction. Peanut protein was solubilised under alkaline condition (pH 10 and 20°C) and purified using ultrafiltration (MWCO 10 kDa). The effects of temperature, ionic strength, pH and protein concentration were studied by turbidity, size, zeta potential and rheological measurements.

The study showed that peanut protein had an isoelectric point ~ 4.3. The z-average diameter of peanut protein molecules was ~ 140 nm. When the protein was subjected to heat treatment (> 80°C), it formed a thermal irreversible gel. This data will aid in understanding the functionality of peanut proteins in beverages.

Cai Ling Ang

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: A/Prof Kelvin Goh and Dr Lara Matia-Merino

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Non-starch polysaccharides from Cyclea barbata Miers The water extract of Cyclea barbata Miers leaves gels spontaneously when blended with water at room temperature without any additives. The component that caused gelation was identiďŹ ed to be non-starch pectic polysaccharide (NSP).

The NSP was isolated by ethanol precipitation method and the weight-average molecular weight determined by static light scattering technique was 4.34x105 g/mol. Data from FT-IR analysis showed absence of peak for methyl esteriďŹ ed carbonyl group. The zeta potential was -74.1 mV indicating that the polysaccharide was a highly negatively charged NSP. The study found that electrostatic interaction was responsible for the gelation of polysaccharide in the presence of divalent ions. The sol-gel transition could occur at very low concentration of calcium salt when the ratio of calcium ion to galacturonic acid [Ca2+]/[COO-] was only 0.188. The cation-sensitive NSP is novel and can be used as an alternative to the commercially produced Na-alginate.

Sin Yee Chong

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Oni Yuliarti and A/ Prof Kelvin Goh

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Lynnette Heng

Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Jason Hindmarsh

Gluten-free bread structured protein Coeliac disease is a life-long intolerance to gliadin and prolamins in gluten from wheat, rye, barley and oats. Ingestion of gluten will cause inďŹ&#x201A;ammation of their small intestine resulting in malabsorption of essential nutrients such as iron, folic acid, calcium and fat soluble vitamins. The only treatment for coeliac disease patients is a strict adherence to a glutenfree diet throughout their lifetime. However, gluten plays an important role in the bread making, where it is the main structure-forming protein in bread. Hence, gluten-free breads were characterised with poor texture, crust colour, shelf-life and ďŹ&#x201A;avour.

This project aims to completely replace gluten with a structured protein in making gluten-free bread. A number of proteins, namely whey protein and casein were used in this research. The principle for this approach is to structure the protein so as it possesses similar viscoelastic properties to gluten. The structured protein, bread dough and bread were analysed with a rheometer and a texture analyser to characterize the role of the protein and compare it to gluten and a wheat dough and bread.

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Jia Min Liew

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Wong Shen Siung and A/Prof Kelvin Goh

Ultrasonication of fruit waste polysaccharide from durian husk Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) is a versatile ingredient that has a wide variety of food applications. It can also be used as a reinforcing agent in biodegradable packaging material. This study aims to explore the potential uses of an agricultural waste, namely durian husk, as a raw material for conversion into useful functional ingredients.

Raw durian husk was mechanically disintegrated into fine particles. This was followed by alkaline and acid treatments, and finally subjected to ultrasonication.

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The results from Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy and Thermo-gravimetric analysis showed close resemblance of alkaline-acid treated sample with a commercial MCC sample.

Ultrasonication further reduced the particle size of alkaline-acid treated samples; the particle size decreased as a function of ultrasonication time. Steady shear viscosity measurements of ultrasonicated dispersion showed thixotropic behavior similar to commercial microcrystalline cellulose. Ultrasonicated dispersion also exhibited a typical gel-like response where G’ dominated over G”. An increase in sonication time led to an increase in G’. The study suggested that cellulosic extract from durian husk could potentially be used as a stabiliser or in bio-composite packaging.

Changes in casein micelle during cheese curing Casein micelles are a major protein found in milk, a raw material used in cheese making. The unique ďŹ&#x201A;avour and texture of each cheese is inďŹ&#x201A;uenced heavily by the chemical state of casein micelles in the cheese.

During the cheese curing process, casein micelles undergo mineral composition and hydration changes. Unfortunately, the curing process takes a long time and is unpredictable. A greater control of the curing of cheese could be gained if the hydration level and mineral state of the casein micelle could be accurately monitored and predicted.

The objective of this study was to determine if solid-state NMR could be used to monitor the chemical state of casein micelles. Casein micelles were extracted from raw milk. Then, the mineral and hydration levels of the casein micelle were artiďŹ cially adjusted. The molecular state of casein micelles were then investigated with solid-state NMR. The results obtained gave a new insight to the structure and chemistry of casein micelles.

Samantha Liew Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Jason Hindmarsh

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Kai Zhi Teo

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Lara Matia-Merino, A/Prof Matt Golding and Miss Chalida Lueamsaisuk (PhD Student)

Physical changes during lipid digestion of model emulsions Infant formula serves as an alternative major source of nutrition for infants. Understanding the impact of heat processing on the digestibility of infant formula is key for this industry. Different heat processes used during manufacture (e.g. powder vs liquid formula) may have an effect on the protein interfacial layer of the lipid fraction and therefore on lipid digestibility.

Model emulsions stabilised by individual ingredients (sodium caseinate or whey protein isolate) were subjected to different types of heat treatments such as ultra-heat temperature processing (141ยบC, 5s), retort treatment (115ยบC, 30 min) and pasteurisation (72ยบC, 15s). These heat-treated emulsions were developed to allow separate characterisation of the emulsions during digestion.

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The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of heat treatment of model emulsions on lipid digestion under infant physiological conditions.

An in-vitro gastric digestion model was used, and changes in particle size (static light scattering), droplet charge (zeta potential) and microstructure (confocal scanning microscopy) of the emulsions were followed for a period of 2 hours.

Electrostatic interactions in polysaccharide mixtures The effect of electrostatic interactions between cationic waxy corn starch and non-starch polysaccharides (gums) was investigated. The gums used were lambda carrageenan (LC), carboxyl methylcellulose (CMC) (both are anionic gums), and guar gum (a neutral charged gum).

The rheological properties and in-vitro digestibility of the starch-gum pastes were studied. Rheological properties of starch-gum pastes indicated the presence of synergistic effect due to electrostatic interactions. RVA results showed cationic starch and LC combination exhibited higher viscosity (6923cP) compared to CMC (3847cP), guar gums (2865cP) combination or starch alone (2615cP). Zeta potential results showed LC has more negative charges (-89.57mV); hence more interaction and therefore stronger electrostatic reaction occurred.

Preliminary results on in-vitro digestion revealed that combination of starch and CMC was more promising compared to LC and guar gum. This could be due to complex matrix formed by electrostatic interaction of CMC and starch is more resistant to enzymatic hydrolysis; therefore providing lowest rate of starch hydrolysis.

This novel starch and gums electrostatic interactions showed promising results and can be used in food systems to reduce glucose release during food digestion.

Rui Xin Alicia Bay

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Oni Yuliarti, Ms Lin Liang Jue and Dr Saw Lin Kiat

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Effect pH of milk on biofilm formation Microbial biofilms in the dairy industry are a major source of product contamination. Anoxybacillus flavithermus and Geobacillus stearothermophilus are the major thermophilic spore forming bacteria associated with the formation of biofilms in milk powder manufacturing plants.

These biofilms form in pipes, in heat exchangers and on filtration membranes in dairy manufacturing plant. The bacteria within the biofilm are released back into the product stream and contaminate the product.

Controlling these biofilms involves increased cleaning frequency and shorter manufacturing runs. An alternative approach may be through altering the pH to prevent the attachment of bacteria to surfaces and disrupt biofilm formation.

Changing the pH may affect the interactions between the bacteria and the surface as attachment of bacteria to surfaces involves a complex interaction between cell surface properties, the property of the surface and an organic conditioning layer on the surface.

This study investigated the effect of milk at different pH on the formation of biofilm.

Altering the pH did not reduce biofilm formation with these dairy isolates therefore this cannot be considered as a method to control these biofilms.

Pei Xuan Lee

Singapore Polytechnic Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Prof Steve Flint and Ms Mehak Dhillon

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Lorelle Ang

Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore Major: Food Technology Supervisor: Dr Wong Shen Siung, Dr Saw Lin Kiat and Miss Marilyn Tan

Effect of hydrothermal treatment on polysaccharide mixtures Coeliac patients cannot tolerate gluten and the prolamins of wheat, rye, barley, and oat. To prepare food product suitable for coeliac patients, many studies have been done to use rice flour as a substitute to wheat flour. However, due to the absence of gluten, this results in a lack of elastic, cohesive and extensive properties in the products. Hence, there are two widely used methods to improve the properties of gluten-free products - the addition of hydrocolloid gums and hydrothermal treatments.

In this study, glutinous rice flour and rice flour were mixed with xanthan gum to undergo hydrothermal treatment.

The physiochemical properties of these polysaccharide mixtures were investigated.

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Laura Wolken

Havelock North High School Major: Food Process Engineering Supervisor: Dr Richard Love and Dr Alistair Carr

Extraction of antioxidants from apple pomace Apple pomace is a major waste stream from the production of apple juice, and consists of the solid material, such as stems, pips, and insoluble fibres, that remains after pressing to remove the juice. Currently, this is sold as animal feed or is sent to landfill. As the pomace is highly acidic, it can cause a number of issues when sent to landfill, including acidification of ground waters if leaching occurs. Analysis of the apple pomace indicates the presence of a number of compounds, most importantly antioxidants, which may have some health benefits as a food ingredient. The antioxidants found in apple pomace, in potentially significant quantities, include polyphenols, flavonoids, anthocyanins, and procyanidins. There are many methods to extract these antioxidants at a laboratory scale, and this project investigated the viability, and design, of a profitable, commercial scale extraction method for providing a nutraceutical ingredient or additive to the food industry.

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Optimisation of lamb carcass spray chilling Conventional chilling processes use cold air passed over freshly slaughtered carcasses for cooling. This evaporates any surface moisture on the carcass and as the process continues draws more moisture from deeper within the carcass to the surface, where it too evaporates. This moisture evaporation does increase the rate of cooling (slightly), but it also reduces saleable weight.

In a spray chilling process, the carcass is coated in a thin layer of water, which then evaporates instead of moisture from within the carcass. If managed correctly, spray can reduce weight loss during chilling, therefore increasing saleable weight, while still maintaining a small increase in the cooling rate due to the evaporation of the spray. However, too much spray d results in an apparent increase in weight, which is not tolerated by legislation and policies that protect consumers from being sold water in lieu of meat.

This project focused on developing and validating a model that can determine the optimal settings for spray chilling in a large, high volume chiller used in a commercial slaughterhouse.

Michael Dixon

Middleton Grange School Major: Food Process Engineering Supervisor: Dr Richard Love

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Jonathan Fanning St. Patricks College Major: Food Process Engineering Supervisor: Dr Alistair Carr

Gelation kinetics in heat abused MPC Milk protein concentrate powders show a marked solubility loss on prolonged storage at elevated temperatures (>30 C).

These temperatures can exist in the supply chain especially for fo product that is shipped through tropical regions resulting in a shortened shelf-life and consequently waste r product.

A key application use of MPC powders is in the protein extension of cheese milk. The aim of this project is to examine the impact of temperature abuse on the kinetics of rennet-induced gelation, which is the primary process step that contributes to cheese quality. The ďŹ nal outcome of the project is to make process improvement recommendations for the handling of these powders.

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INDEX

By Majors Industrial Management & Innovation .................................................................... 5 Engineering and Industrial Management .............................................................. 6 Product Development................................................................................................ 7 Mechatronics ........................................................................................................... 19 Mechatronics ........................................................................................................... 20 Industrial Automation .............................................................................................. 60 Electronics and Computer Engineering .............................................................. 63 Computer and Electronics Engineering ...............................................................64 Electronics and Computer Systems Engineering ............................................... 72 Telecommunication and Network Engineering .................................................. 75 Electronics and Communication Engineering ..................................................... 77 Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering .................................................................. 79 Biotechnology........................................................................................................... 80 Chemical and Nanotechnology ............................................................................. 84 Environmental Technology and Sustainable Energy ......................................... 94 Food Technology...................................................................................................... 99 Food Process Engineering.................................................................................... 146

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By Student Name First Name Adam Aden Aidan AJ Allan Andrew Angus Anica Arron Ashton Avani Bardia Benita Benjamin Bernard Bhim Bi Xue Binglun (Larry) Blair Cai Ling Cameron Campbell Casey Chris Christi Craig

Surname Naqvi ....................................................................44 Fareh ......................................................................96 Crimp .....................................................................94 Ahmed ...................................................................52 Yeung .....................................................................80 Drain ......................................................................15 Neilson ................................................................103 Ong .......................................................................132 Cox .........................................................................85 Gardiner ................................................................71 Patel .......................................................................66 McRae ...................................................................53 Yoviani ...................................................................59 Connelly ..................................................................6 Huggins .................................................................49 Dulal .......................................................................75 Tan .......................................................................130 Li .............................................................................42 Dixon ......................................................................50 Ang .......................................................................137 Jones .....................................................................72 Ellison ..................................................................118 Lynch ...................................................................111 Stewart ..................................................................23 Enslin .....................................................................56 Kirwan ...................................................................92

Dan (Cindy) Dan Daniel Daniil David Dennis Elliot Erik Esraa Ethan Eunice Evan Fernando Franceline Gladys Georgina Xuan En Gertrude Greg Hamish Hani Harsh Jogindra HuaFeng (Lucy) Hui Kheng Jacques Jamie Jegannath Jenica Jennie Jia Min Johann Jolin Jonathan

Wu ........................................................................113 Cummins ...............................................................87 Sanson ..................................................................38 Kedrinski ...............................................................67 Creagh ...................................................................48 Tay .......................................................................108 Hathaway ..............................................................74 Scheirlinck ............................................................13 El Shall .................................................................114 Tay .........................................................................11 Low ......................................................................131 Gordon ...................................................................77 Castellanos .............................................................8 Minardo ...............................................................134 Tan .......................................................................128 Then .....................................................................122 Peacock ..................................................................9 Fagg .......................................................................33 AďŹ ffa Mohd Hanif ...............................................93 Modi .......................................................................39 Guo ........................................................................70 Ching ....................................................................124 van Burick .............................................................36 Howarth ................................................................84 Sivanathan ............................................................40 Bhatiya ..................................................................82 Feast .....................................................................83 Liew .....................................................................140 Nel ..........................................................................69 Morel .....................................................................89 Beetham ................................................................21

Jonathan Fanning ................................................................148 Jonathan Thompson ............................................................46 Joshua Pirihi .......................................................................37 Juliet Macias Clarke ....................................................115 Justin Maher ..................................................................117 Justin Moloney ................................................................24 Kai Zhi Teo .......................................................................142 Kaushik S.J. .......................................................................105 Kevin Tan .......................................................................120 Laura Wolken ................................................................146 Leo Lai ...........................................................................90 Liam Barrack .................................................................26 Lorelle Ang .......................................................................145 Luke Dwyer ....................................................................32 Luke Larsen ..................................................................101 Lynnette Heng ....................................................................139 Mahdi Nimatullah Mohammadi ........................................................35 Mardhiah Kasim .....................................................................88 Mathew Flemmer ................................................................60 Matthew Sells .......................................................................97 Matthew Yung .......................................................................14 Max Betteridge ...............................................................7 Michael Dixon ....................................................................147 Michael Phillips ...................................................................43 Mohamed Al Hinai ..................................................................76 Mohammad Abusidou ...............................................................86 Mohd Amir HafďŹ z Marzuki .................................................................31 Morgan Vine ........................................................................91 Munhaw (Desmond) Kam ........................................................................58 Nathanael Shaw ......................................................................20 Neala Ye .........................................................................107

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Nicholas Nicholas Nick Pei Xuan Penelope Phei Ching Philip Rebecca Rhys David Richard Richardt Ridvan Rinny Ritchie Rui Xin Alicia Ryan Samantha Sarah Alice Sarah Sarah Seng Guan Sheal Shi Yi Si Yi Sin Yee Siti Farah Stepan Stephenie Stuart Sue Tai Hiang Jeremy Tao Terrence Thomas Wei Ling

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Falconer ................................................................41 Hill ..........................................................................25 Reid ........................................................................29 Lee .......................................................................144 Tait .........................................................................10 Siow .....................................................................123 Hudson ..................................................................54 Lock .....................................................................100 Howell ...................................................................57 Dando ....................................................................45 Jenkinson .............................................................12 Solimov ..................................................................30 ..............................................................................133 En ...........................................................................81 Bay .......................................................................143 McGurk .................................................................68 Liew .....................................................................141 Ratcliffe .................................................................16 Beaton .................................................................112 Lewington ...........................................................116 Lim ........................................................................121 Bangera ................................................................51 Lim ........................................................................106 Quek .....................................................................136 Chong ..................................................................138 Lokman ..................................................................73 Lapshev .................................................................55 Yeung .....................................................................22 Hall .......................................................................102 Chok .......................................................................95 Ng .........................................................................109 Liang ....................................................................104 See .......................................................................119 Phillips ...................................................................34 Tan .......................................................................129

Wing Kit Xin Mei Daphne Xue Li Yanjin Yeehin Yi Sin Yixiao (Baker) Yong Seng York Zehuan

Loh .......................................................................110 Tay .......................................................................126 Ong .......................................................................135 Chen .......................................................................27 Kwok ......................................................................65 Teng .....................................................................125 Du ...........................................................................28 Tan .......................................................................127 Pritchard ...............................................................47 Geng ......................................................................64

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For more information email: engineering@massey.ac.nz or visit: www.massey.ac.nz/engineering or visit our facebook page facebook.com/MasseyEngineering

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