From medical devices to drones, a flying prison theatre cellular telephone telephone coverage platform together with a detachable intubation device, senior mechanical, aerospace, together with environmental applied scientific discipline students exhibited their capstone projects Th at the Department of Mechanical together with Aerospace Engineering's Senior Project Day. Most students were mechanical, aerospace or environmental engineers, though unopen to teams included electrical together with estimator applied scientific discipline students equally well. The varied projects were completed inwards only 1 quarter, but reflected years of difficult work.
Students worked inwards teams on projects proposed past times a sponsor facing a real-world challenge. Seniors said the capstone cast taught them lessons virtually collaboration together with documenting their piece of work that volition transfer good to their adjacent step, last it an manufacture task or furthering their education.
Here are only a few examples of the tremendous endeavor position forth past times these graduating students.
Self-generated Lower Body Negative Pressure Device for Deep-space Missions
This squad of students has designed together with built a device that generates negative clit per unit of measurement area inwards the lower one-half of the trunk together with allows blood to shift toward the lower extremities. The device doesn’t demand an external view together with might source. The proposal for their device has been of late accepted past times NASA. The finish is to eventually mail a version of the device to the International Space Station, where it volition assist command astronaut blood flow. That’s because inwards basis gravity, blood pools inwards the lower trunk past times itself. But when you’re inwards space, inwards microgravity, all this blood shifts toward the upper body. Eventually, the trunk adapts to microgravity, but together with thus astronauts are to a greater extent than probable to experience lightheaded together with have got problem standing when they instruct dorsum to earth. So astronauts demand to pass unopen to fourth dimension inwards a device similar the 1 the students devised. Team: Joel Bickel, Ross McDonald, Kavin Tangtartharakul, Richard Valle
Sponsors: Dr. Alan Hargens together with Dr. Lonnie Petersen together with the UC San Diego Department of Orthopedic Surgery
Collapsible Shipping Container
When UTC Aerospace ships thrust reversers—a large slice of equipment that enables aircraft to decelerate-- they also have got to pay to transportation the really large containers dorsum empty. These containers tin give the sack last equally large equally 14’ x 10’ x 12’, thus it’s non cheap. Students inwards the MAE156 Fundamental Principles of Mechanical Design course of instruction spent a quarter designing an option solution: a collapsible transportation container.
Their container reduces the book of the master copy container existence shipped dorsum past times 75 percentage via quick-release pins. The pins don’t require tools together with are attached to the box, thus no screws or bolts volition instruct lost inwards the process. With a few unproblematic pulls, employees tin give the sack flexure the transportation container downwardly significantly, reducing the costs of transportation dorsum the empty container.
Team: Robbie Corpuz, Joey Sun, Hyunwoo (Paul) Park, Steven Salazar, Yu (Alexis) Su
Human- powered medical devices
Home wellness attention services inwards the USA have got been growing amongst the increasing elderly population, but many medical devices today require electricity or batteries. Undergraduate students designed a human-powered O2 Scope that combines an otoscope to depository fiscal establishment lucifer within a patient’s ears with a opthalmoscope to depository fiscal establishment lucifer eyes. These are usually 2 split upwards devices, but the students combined them into one, using LED lights to depository fiscal establishment lucifer the ear together with eye.
The O2 Scope is powered past times a linear alternator which creates an induced electromagnetic force: the user only needs to milk tremble it dorsum together with forth for v seconds to might the LED at max brightness for xxx seconds, which is long plenty for an examination.
Team: Charmaine Castillo, Andrew Chen, Ariyan Rahmanian, Christopher Wiggins
Sponsors: Khai Nguyen, MD, Clinical Services Chief of Geriatrics
Project Laputa—A Flying Base Station for Disaster Recovery Scenarios
A squad of applied scientific discipline students designed, built together with tested a flying platform that tin give the sack last used to render prison theatre cellular telephone telephone coverage inwards areas hitting past times a disaster. The principal finish was to construct an unmanned flying vehicle that tin give the sack remain aloft for hours, equally opposed to the xxx minutes that most tin give the sack fly. Students built a cylindrical vehicle with a rounded lip, inspired past times a machine gunnery platform used inwards WWII. It’s controlled past times iv rudders, which are each independently controlled past times a servo motor. By the way, the project’s lift is a reference to a flying isle described inwards Gulliver’s Travels. It also appears inwards the flick “Castle inwards the Sky” past times Hayao Miyazaki.
Team: Raymond Silver, Chengta (Dale) Lei, Charles Knight, Brynn Hall
Sponsor Professor Xinyu Zhang, Department of Electrical together with Computer Engineering, UC San Diego
Shellfish Biosensor
Shellfish similar oysters unopen their shells when they’re stressed. In club to create upwards one's hear when together with how stressed they are, students designed a biosensor organisation using a magnet to wirelessly monitor when shellfish’s vanquish is open, together with for how long together with how wide.
By laying existing information such equally oxygen score together with temperature on range off of this data, researchers could expose correlations betwixt when the organisms are stressed together with what environmental factors may last contributing to that.
A magnet is attached to 1 side of the vanquish with the sensor on the other. Voltage values volition alter equally the vanquish opens together with the magnet gets farther from the sensor, showing how broad the vanquish is open, together with for how long.
Team: Adrian Urrea, Claudio Coleman, Emma Schoenthal, Hsing-Han Chung, Marika Hale
Sponsor: Dr. Sarah Giddings together with Dr. Jeff Crooks
Pelvic Girdle
When a adult woman has cervical cancer, she may have external radiation, equally good equally brachytherapy, or radiations from within the pelvis, which is an effective way to apply targeted radiation.
To exercise this today, the patient sits or lies on a heavy wooden board equipped with an arm that has the radiations source on it, which is inserted into her vagina. She sits at that spot for an average of 3 hours, but has to last careful non to move, or the radiations won’t last applied to the right area. This is uncomfortable together with tin give the sack brand the physical care for less effective.
Students designed a pelvic girdle that attaches to the patient, thus the arm with radiations is attached to them together with moves with them. This makes it less uncomfortable together with to a greater extent than precise, since the device volition motility with the patient.
The squad of students was able to work their device inwards 2 patient trials, together with received positive feedback. They programme to dice on developing the device over the summer.
Team: Megan Elliott, Keenan Finney, Cameron Hutton, Shichen Li
Sponsors: Dr. Jyoti Mayadev together with UC San Diego Moores Cancer Research Center
Anchor for Shoulder Instability
This squad of students designed together with built a novel type of anchor for shoulder surgical physical care for that is made of stiff components but is flexible. The anchor would eventually last used inwards surgical physical care for to reattach cartilage to shoulder bones. The students used CAD together with conducted fine chemical element analysis on their designs. They iterated through diverse 3D printed prototypes earlier machining the terminal prototypes from titanium. Further steps are required earlier the anchors tin give the sack last used inwards the clinic. 
Team: Bryan Brenna, Delta Caraulia, Darren Deng, Helen Tat Sponsors: Sameer Shah, associate professor, Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery together with Bioengineering together with Dr. Adam Hsieh, UC San Diego School of Medicine
Portable deformation testing using carbon nanotube fabrics
Students designed a portable device to examine deformities inwards a diversity of materials using carbon nanotube fabric. This sparse stuff tin give the sack last used to guess the strain of a stuff using a physical care for called electrical impedence tomography. This is done today on a desktop estimator inwards a lab, together with isn’t portable.
The mobile device designed past times a squad of undergraduate students enables this testing inwards a diversity of situations—for example, deployed warfighters could work it to ensure their protective wearable is even thus effective together with hasn’t been critically damaged during an event; structural engineers could embed the stuff inwards concrete or bridges, for example, together with work the portable device to speedily monitor the amount of impairment done afterwards an earthquake; the device could abide by if a prosthetic limb was implanted improperly or deformed together with is applying also much clit per unit of measurement area on the user at a certainly point.
Team:Aaron Gunn, Jacob Rutheiser, Maxwell Sun
Sponsor: Ken Loh, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Structural Engineering at UC San Diego together with manager of the Active, Responsive, Multifunctional, together with Ordered-materials Research (ARMOR) Laboratory
Boomerang Gyroscope Demonstration Device
How does a boomerang fly? The respond to this query is surprisingly complex together with involves precession—the physical care for which causes the boomerang to ever come upwards back—and nutation—the physical care for that causes the boomerang to disceptation from the vertical to the horizontal. This squad of students built a gyroscope that models both precession together with nutation of a boomerang inwards flight. The device volition last used for outreach together with education.
Team: Chuanyue Xia, Akinari Ohashi, Steven Teixeira, Kangchun Wang
Sponsor: Prasad Gudem
Cough simulation apparatus
Mechcanical together with aerospace applied scientific discipline students were tasked with creating a breathalyzer that tin give the sack abide by pathogens past times Austin Swafford, Director of Research for the UC San Diego Center for Microbiome Innovation.
“After talking with Dr. Swafford, nosotros realized that at that spot are no controlled ways to test a breathalyzer for pathogens—we can’t only ingest them for testing purposes—so nosotros shifted the focus of our projection to a coughing simulator,”said educatee Mandy Nichols. The device the students built looks by together with large similar a garden hose. To examine it, a mixture of sugar together with H2O is loaded into 1 halt together with spewed out the other to copy a cough.
“The ‘cough’ is sprayed at a glucose strip,” said educatee Emilee Kang. “We tin give the sack mensurate the size of the droplet nether a microscope together with the concentration on the glucose strip.”
The sentiment is to render laboratory researchers with a security together with effective way to examine pathogen breathalyzers.
Team:Donghyun Seo, Ziliang Zhang, Emilee Kang, Mandy Nichols, Gaoge Xu, Dingran Lu
Sponsor: Austin Swafford
Detachable Intubation Device
If a patient is nether anesthesia together with needs assistance breathing, a medical professional person volition house an endotracheal underground inwards their airway inwards club to connect them to a ventilator. The endotracheal underground itself gets placed over an insertion underground that contains a bronchoscope which lets the nurse or MD run into within the airways to navigate the underground where it eneds to go. Once it’s inwards place, the endotracheal underground is slid downwardly into place, together with the insertion underground is removed.
However, inwards unopen to cases the pateint’s trachea is also small, together with the insertion underground together with endotracheal underground both demand to last removed to supervene upon the existing underground with a smaller endotracheal tube. Students designed a detachable bronchoscope that would allow the insertion underground to remain within the patient piece it’s disconnected from the bronchoscope for a smaller endotracheal underground to last swapped in. This way the underground exclusively has to last placed once, instead of potentially multiple times.
Team: Mark Olesco, Rogelio De Guzman, Fengyuan Hu, Matthew Kohanfars
Sponsor: Frank Talke together with Jaspreet Somal