Capstone Design Projects

Fall 2023

There were 24 design teams and projects. Each team worked for two semesters to come up with the design and fabrication of the project. A list of the design projects for Fall 2023 is as follows.

1. Garden Grabber
2. MultiKey
3. AeroBrace
4. RTA Industries
5. Tire Pressure Pro - 25
6. Team Kilowatt
7. Imagination Group - Off Grid Washing
8. GSD - Beverage Dispenser
9. Racing Machine
10. LDRbot
11. Brake Temp
12. The Refrigeraiders
13. G2B
14. Aquatic Search and Recovery Device 
15. Electric Bike Design
16. Grain Gobbler
17. Household Injection Machine Design
18. M&M Lab Injection Molding Design
19. Scorch Cooler
20. RoverPi
21. Pill Dispenser
22. Powder Cast Oven
23. Mobility Scooter Lift
24. Car Rotisserie

Spring 2023

There were 24 design teams and projects. Each team worked for two semesters to come up with the design and fabrication of the project. A list of the design projects for Spring 2023 is as follows.

1. Lane Detection System 

2. Campfire Steam Turbine 

3. EVTOL Transition Mechanism 

4. Tesla Pulse Jet Engine 

A Pulsejet Engine is an engine that pulses the thrust and combustion with little or no moving parts. These engines are very inefficient due to significant heat loss, vibrations and noise. A Tesla valve is designed as a check valve with no moving parts by relying on the direction of flow. The Tesla Pulsejet Engine was designed to investigate the use of a Tesla valve as a control valve before the intake on a Giant Chinese Valveless Pulsejet Engine. The device consists of the mechanical engine body system, mechanical fuel system and electrical ignition system.

Team Members: Anna Slovak, Ben Jensen, Zach Lee, Tyler Maurer, Bodee Humphreys, Jake Bradford

Instructor:  Turgut Baturalp

5. Forklift Hydraulic Fluid Heater 

6. Frost Fan 

7. Beach Wheelchair 

8. Automated T-Post Driver 

Problem Statement: T-Post instillation processes are slow and labor intensive, there is a need for easier, economically viable solution.
Objective: Develop a remote operated machine that drives multiple t-posts without user assistance.
Design Criteria:
• Total weight < 250lbs (max load for UTV)
• Performance in all terrain environments
• Projected production cost < $750/unit

Team Members: Colton Black, Dane McMahon, Kallista Kunzler, Will Shaw, Nathan Sullivan

Instructor: Dr. Paul Egan

9. Automated Ratchet Strap 

Mission Statement: Our mission is to revolutionize cargo transportation by developing an innovative auto-tightening ratchet strap that not only secures the load but also displays the force on the load. Our strap's intelligent design ensures that it auto-tightens when straps loosen during load shifts on a journey, providing reliable and safe transportation for our customers' cargo.

Team Members: Logan Fox, Corentin Menand, Jake Witte, Agustin Gonzalez,
Zander Goodwin, Nathan Shapiro, and Blake Parr

10. Upper Body Exoskeleton System 

In our first semester, the goal of our exoskeleton design was to assist individuals with degenerative muscular conditions or physical limitations. During this time, we toggled between single-arm designs of a wheelchair-attached or physically-fitted device. This semester, the project deviated towards a more robust, upper body, Iron Man-esque design after realizing the oversimplicity of our original design. This system is now capable of dynamic and static load-lifting with the options of dual-arm or individual arm control. The wholistic design and the specific solutions realized to make this project possible have great potential for both industrial and personal use.

Team members: Kim Bezeau, Nicholas Villagran, Brett Ferguson, Cesar Jimenjez, Tyler McLemore, Sahil Patel 

11. Cycling Aid 

The most challenging part is creating a design that accommodates as many people with arm or motor disabilities as possible. The design needs to be adjustable to fit different genders and body shapes. It will be important to create attachments that are easily installable for the user or that can be taken to a local bike shop install. Our attachments must be designed to adhere to a bike like common bike attachments are to avoid installation difficulties. Our project combines a balancing element, steering element, and braking element to allow safe use of a bicycle and can be installed at a regular bike shop. 

Team members: David Batres, Yvonne Cebe, Connor Davis, Alex Fanos, Nasser Filty, Leighton Mitchell, Austin Skender

12. Star Forge: Space Mining with Plasma 

The ability to access raw materials in space has been identified as a necessary step in NASA's goals of establishing sustainable human presence in space. However, the processes used today to extract and refine these materials are far too heavy and complex to be transported directly into space. The present design solves this problem by providing a light-weight system capable of refining critical
compounds without the use of chemical reactants sourced from Earth. 

Team members: Aaron Chadwick, Adrian Brink, Devon Yeager, Francisco Aguilera, Luke Jackson, Max Kennedy, Parker White

Instructor: Dr. Paul Egan

13. Knee Device 

Knee injury accounts for 41% of all sports injuries”; is a quote from an article published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine written by Dr. Parag Sancheti and colleagues. Described in the article are important risk factors related to a knee injury and common methods of both prevention and treatment. These include surgery and rehabilitation of the mentioned common types of injury. We see that there are many people who could benefit from a design improvement in physical therapy techniques that offers a portable and effective option to existing technologies such as CPM machines.

Team members: Pinak Bhuban, Trey Vela, Eric Arevalo, Brianna Wilkerson, Sean Atchue, Evan Potvin

Instructor: Dr. Paul Egan

14. Floating Arm Trebuchet 

15. Telescopic Arm 

16. Asteroid Core Examiner Probe 

17. Pneumatic Pit Bike 

18. Automated Stick Charring 

19. Baseball Pitching Machine 

20. Small-scale Turbo Jet Engine 

Turbojet engines have been used in aerospace applications for over 80 years to achieve high flight performance and power output. This design project's goal is to produce a working turbojet engine using materials and resources that the University provides, along with material anyone can buy from a hardware or hobby store.

Team members: Weston Wright, Joseph Scheffey, Brett Shaw, Colby Reynolds,
Harrison Childre, Jayce Jensen, Garrison Stevens, Jacob Wilhelm

Instructor: Dr. Jeff Hanson

21. 7 Seas Water Sample Collection Boat 

Playa lakes are primarily filled with runoff; therefore, they are prone to contamination. We created a remotecontrolled boat designed to collect water samples, eliminating the need to wade into potentially contaminated waters. Our design will simplify the process by decreasing collection time and increasing sampling efficiency.

Team members:  Allie Smith, Blake Moore, Carly Weaver, Carl Cassel, Christopher Smith, Nathan Broyles, William Schaap

Instructor: Dr. Jeff Hanson

22. ASME Renewable Vehicular Robot 

One way to increase renewable energy production is by developing devices that can charge directly from the sun and the wind without drawing power from the
grid. If enough devices are developed with this capability, it will reduce the strain on the power grid and alleviate reliance on non-renewable resources.

To develop technology for renewable energy devices by designing a Renewable Vehicular Robot (RVR) for use in the ASME Student Design Competition. 

Team members: Akshata Bhide, Alejandro Cardenas, Oluwasayofunmi Felix-Aremo, Blake Houldsworth, Elliot Pak, Joshua Ramon Dira,
Deborah Ukoha

23. Solar Assist Trike 

The Solar Assist Trike Design Project was started to satisfy the needs of a pollution-free, on-the-go charging form of transportation. With the use of a solar panel to charge several batteries that power a motor, the idea is that the rider will only need to pedal at a steady, comfortable pace while still maintaining speeds above 10 mph. After finalizing our deign, we were able to bring into fruition a working protype which we believe successfully fulfills the goals of this design project.

Team members: Troy Gallagher, Andrew Evans, Joe Wagner, Israel Paz, Cameron Clancy, Carson Johnson, Samuel Hoyl, Bradley Daniel 

Faculty advisor: Andrew Mosedale

Instructor: Dr. Jeff Hanson

24. NASA Rover 

The NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge is an annual international competition where colleges and high schools are tasked with creating a human-powered rover to explore the surface of Mars and complete water collection tasks. 

Team members: : Kierya Freiboth, Nova Goulet-Cyr, Travis Isburgh, Alexis Jimenez, Mateo Robles, Mary Roccaforte, Rebecca Stokes, Tianzheng Wang

Faculty advisors:  Roy Mullins and David Myers

Instructor: Dr. Jeff Hanson