I need your help with my Senior Design Project!

[Team Awesome NCSU]

Hey Everybody,

My name is William Chang and I’m currently working on my senior design project for Mechanical Engineering at North Carolina State University. I’m doing my project through the Engineering Entrepreneurship Program which teaches us how to build our own companies around new technologies that we create. The reason for this post is because my team, The Awesome Engineering Company, has come up with a project idea that is intended for automotive enthusiasts.

What we want to do is combine the traditional jack and jack stand into one system. It will consist of a collapsible jack stand that connects to a separate drive unit to lift a car. Once the car has been lifted to the desired height, the jack stand will lock into place to become structurally sound and the drive unit can be disconnected and used to raise other stands. This will allow you to lift a car and then support it using the same jacking point. No more having to juggle your car back and forth between a jack and jack stands. Our company plan is to design, manufacture, sell and support our jack system here in the US. We want to build it with locally sourced recycled steel using sustainable processes and biodegradable hydraulic fluids.

What do you think of the concept? Your feedback will help us figure out if our idea will be viable and help us make our business plan. Please take a second to answer the two multiple choice questions in our completely anonymous survey (the description is the same as the one you just read):
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGN0cGtXcTk2a2QtS1I0bVIydV9ONXc6M Q

We really appreciate you taking the time to help us out! The design and prototype of the jack system will happen later this semester and we could very well turn this into a start-up company when we graduate.

Follow along with our progress and read some interesting automotive news on our Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/AwesomeEngineering

and check out our formal company website:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~kbbradle/awesome/