Judges and public select top mechanical engineering Senior Design and Graduate Design projects at Expo 2019
Everything an engineering student at CU Boulder learns comes together in capstone design projects, presented at the annual Engineering Projects Expo. This year, close to 50 mechanical engineering teams were present, including Senior Design and Graduate Design teams, sponsored and entrepreneurial teams and mechanical and mixed-discipline teams. Mechanical engineering projects included everything from prosthetics for dogs to devices for disabled veterans to systems for more precise manufacturing of surgical instruments to tools for space observation and more.
A group of judges made up of industry partners and professors assessed projects and voted on the ones they found to be most impressive. This year, they selected "Seagate Disc Centering System" sponsored by Seagate Technology, "Shifting Capability of the Driven High Efficiency Bicycle Drivetrain" sponsored by CeramicSpeed and "EOD Flexible Wire Attack Tool" sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory as the top mechanical engineering projects. They also selected "Acoustic Monitoring for Catastrophic Fault Prevention" sponsored by Terumo BCT as the top graduate project.
The public, including adults and children also had a vote. They selected two mechanical engineering teams as the recipients of the People's Choice Best Poster award and the People's Choice Overall Runner Up award. The People's Choice Best Poster award went to "Particle Counting Device" sponsored by Seagate Technology and the People's Choice Overall Runner Up award went to "Automatic Fire Truck Ladder Controller," an entrepreneurial team.
While hours of work on 2019 capstone design projects have come to a close for most students, many projects will continue to be used and further developed in industry or by individuals users. Students say they are relieved to be done, but they are equally glad their hard work has gone to something that will last and make an impact beyond the classroom.