I Need Help Getting Ideas For an Undergraduate Thesis Topic

This is not a homework help site, so don't expect to get very much. All I can say is, identify what you're passionate about and know well, and write about it. As the old adage goes, write what you know.

How about the reinstitution of use of pneumatic tube systems with larger diameters and distance that they have had in the past ? A whole network of pipelines could be implemented for the U S Postal System. If not interconnected at the outset while innovation is taking place, at least for the multiple daily "shuttle runs" between the local airports and the central city offices. It also might be experimented with on college campuses, with diameters large enough to deliver, Chinese take out food as a standard. Actually, New York City had 26 miles of pneumatic tubes connecting post office branches between 1897 and 1953, that at its peak was carrying 1/3 of the first class mail between stations in Manhattan and into Brooklyn, over 10 million letters perday ! It may seem like a technology from another era, but certainly it can be modernized, and one thing about it -- it doesn't require gasoline or petroleum based fuel. (What are practical speed limits, what qualitative difference is there between a one meter diameter systemfor products/mail/wastes, and a three meter diameter system for passengers ! It's a thing being explored, but still far from mainstream.) (Actually, the late "Father of Rocketry," Dr. Robert H.Goddard, patented a system shortly before he died in 1945. He has a great deal of credibility - he's even on a US Postage stamp.1964) I'd be glad to start you off with some more info. hn

My father's family lived in a boxcar during the great depression.. and when he was 15, he ran away to join the army.. Anyway, as we are entering a time of depression apparently, you could design a system of affordable modular housing, with integrated heating/cooling/lighting/appliances, that can be mass produced, yet be safe and secure. I would want to include as much green energy systems as is reasonable to the design, so the entire system remains portable. This isn't just an architectural question, as it involves not only shelter, but portability, energy/hvac, structural, and potentially transportation and communication, manufacturing methods, materials, quality control, etc etc etc.

But it really is all about you. This is your career, and you need to look inside yourself, and ask those important questions.. What am I here to do? What do I want to do, What am I good at, and most of all, what do I love to do. Any area where you have a high level of competency that you enjoy is a good idea.

If you are looking for drawings or renderings.. drop a line.

Chris

Here's another one for you .. A simple scalable method of putting in and taking out energy from a flywheel, regardless of flywheel angular velocity, flywheel mass, flywheel diameter, input energy amount. The output should be convertible to other forms of energy in a highly efficient manner. The system should be safe, reliable, and affordable.

Chris