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The problems we solved in 2024

At the College of Engineering and Computing, graduating seniors spend their final year at Miami University solving problems at a professional level.

By Miami University

June 24^th, 2024

For engineering and computing students at Miami University, senior year represents a significant shift.

It's during this final year that students at the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC) are able to demonstrate at a professional level the problem-solving skills they've learned in their time as undergraduates. This is accomplished in a final culminating experiential learning group project known as the Senior Design Project.

In each Senior Design Project, students and companies partner to solve an engineering or computing problem. Students gain real-world design and project experience while working through a design process. Businesses interact and engage with the students, benefitting from their technical skills and expertise, while faculty advisors create close relationships with students for future work.

In May of each year, the CEC graduating class presents their Senior Design Projects at a culminating annual event called the Senior Design Expo. At the Expo, the Senior Design Projects are judged by students, faculty, and alumni. Final awards by department and category are handed out the next day at a celebratory breakfast.

This year's Senior Design Expo featured 83 teams of students, each one working with a faculty advisor and partnering with a client to create never-before-seen solutions for real-world engineering and computing problems. Read on to learn more about some of this year's award-winning projects and teams.

Climb Higher

Climb Higher is a mobile application which improves accessibility for rock climbers with color blindness. Created by Harrison Baker, Alyssa Justiniano, Mason Grant, and Daniel Townsend, this Senior Design Project was the First Place winner for the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering. Their faculty advisor was Garrett Goodman.

Harrison Baker (Computer Science major), Alyssa Justiniano (Computer Science major), Mason Grant (Software Engineering major), and Daniel Townsend (Computer Science major) are the Senior student team that built Climb Higher.

“If you were a color blind rock climber it could be difficult to determine between similar colors (on a rock climbing wall) ... which can hurt your experience. Our client is a colorblind rock climber and has that exact problem.”

– Harrison Baker, introducing the problem solved through his group's Senior Design Project, the Climb Higher mobile application.

Climb Higher, an indoor rock climbing mobile application, makes it easier for climbers with color blindness to identify the different color holds and routes on climbing walls.

The Climb Higher team responded to the challenge posed by their client by creating a mobile application which used computer vision to detect and identify color routes and holds on a rock climbing wall, all within the app experience. As a result, the app is able to improve accessibility for indoor rock climbers with color blindness.

In addition to providing this solution, the app also provided functionality supporting climb tracking, including creating a climb history and tracking climb statistics.

Technical Tools Used: .Net Maui for framework (C#, XAML), Sqlite for local storage, Visual Studio for IDE (integrated development environment), Git Lab for collaboration, project management, and code repository, and EMgu CV for the application’s computer vision library.

Experience Gained: “We gained a lot of experience with the Agile software development cycle … setting up sprint cycles, doing our weekly meetings and doing our daily stand-ups. This is extremely valuable experience because it's used a lot in industry. We also improved our communication skills by translating technical details to non-technical people.” -The Climb Higher Team

Low-Cost Gluten Sensor

The First Place winners for the Department of Chemical, Paper, and Biomedical Engineering created a Senior Project which designed a low-cost gluten sensor. The project team for this Senior Design project was Taylor LaValley, Caroline Daggett, Lauren Mishkin, Maeve Callaghan, Katherine Skeen, and Piper Synder. Their faculty advisor was Keith Hohn.

Members of the award-winning First Place team from the Department of Chemical, Paper, and Biomedical Engineering after receiving their award.

The goal of this team's Senior Design Project was to design a sensor capable of detecting small quantities of gluten in food. The team felt that a device like this would be a useful tool for people with Celiac Disease, since they experience intestinal damage due to small quantities of gluten.

In order to determine their final design, the team did a literature search and created specifications to create a device that was user-friendly and cost-effective. Their specifications included a desire for a low detection limit (below 20 ppm), short readout time, long shelf-life, low device cost, and simple and inexpensive materials.

In the end, the team was able to find a viable option for "in solution" testing using gold nanoparticles and aptamers to produce color changes.

The team's in-depth business plan included economic calculations and projections toward the markup and breakeven point for a company using this product.

Charts and graphs from the team's final report. Figure A shows results for solutions with different concentrations of pure gluten. Figure B shows absorbance curves for solutions with different concentrations of pure gluten measured by spectrophotometer.

The problems we solved in 2024

The problems we solved in 2024

The problems we solved in 2024

Project Buster

The recipient of the First Place award for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering for 2024 was Project Buster. Project Buster was created by Nick DiSisto, Bradley Garner, and Alyssa Winn. Their faculty advisor was Jim Leonard.

"Buster" is a robotic dog that the team created during their senior year using open source software and a 3D printer.

Project Buster team members Alyssa Winn, Bradley Gartner and Nick DiSisto showcase their creation.

The goal of Project Buster was to develop a robotic dog similar to Boston Dynamics' Spot for a fraction of the cost. In the end, the project’s total cost came in at around $250-$300. That's compared to the $74,500 that Boston Dynamics charges for Spot.

This project team was featured on an episode of CEC TV on CEC's Instagram page. Take a look below to learn more about their process and to see Buster in action.

Reverse Thrust Mechanism For a Small Gas Turbine Jet Engine

The First Place winning team from CEC's Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering took on the challenge of developing a working reverse thrust system for the JetCat P100RX, a micro turbine for model jet aircraft. Reverse thrust is the redirection of an engine’s exhaust or thrust to slow down an aircraft, often used while landing.

The team — comprised of students Jacob Bare, Will Brunka, Kyle Laemmle, Zach Mentzer, Joey Reindl, and Nick Vernon with mentorship from faculty advisors Luigi Giancarlo Corti and Andrew Sommers — aimed to accomplish this task with maximum reversed thrust value (based on percent of Baseline Thrust), a 0-5 second time for reverse thrust actuation, and a maximum baseline thrust to weight ratio, among other specifications.

To address this challenge, each team member did separate background research and came up with two possible solutions to the problem. One solution from each team member was created in CAD software for design analysis. Ideas were scored in terms of manufacturability, volume, weight, cost, reverse thrust capability, creativity and safety. The top two designs were taken further by the team for iteration and testing.

In the end, the team decided to go forward with the bucket style thrust reverser. Multiple design iterations later, it was time for testing. The team created a testing environment set up to resemble the testing station that would be encountered at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) to test their final design.

During this testing, the team encountered additional challenges in the form of the engine shutting down during actuation due to back pressure, high temperatures during actuation, and an inability to reach the maximum RPM with their redesigned nozzle. These experiences were a valuable learning experience for the team and provide crucial data for the next group of CEC seniors to take on this project for the 2025 Senior Design Expo.

Early designs and iterations from the team created using CAD software.

The problems we solved in 2024

The problems we solved in 2024

Additional Awards

In addition to the departmental First Place awardees described above, additional awards were offered to Senior Design projects spotlighting Socially Engaged Engineering and Computing (SEEC) and Assistive Technology. To learn more about these projects, please select the links below.

1st Place Socially Engaged Engineering and Computing:

AvidConnections: Generations Connected by Rylee Domonkos, Morghan Jones, and Alex Myron with faculty advisor DJ Rao.

First Place Socially Engaged Engineering and Computing (SEEC) Award Winners Rylee Domonkos, Morghan Jones, and Alex Myron.

1st Place MUCAT (Miami University Center for Assistive Technology) Design Competition:

P.A.I.A (Prosthetic Attachment for Industry Amputees) by Mark Whapham, Jeremy Eatough, Danish Malik, Zach Metz, Trevor Nolan, David Bartolin, Kasey Edwards, and Megan Weaver with faculty advisor Michael Bailey Van Kuren.

Team member Danish Malik demonstrates the Prosthetic Attachment in action.

Future Work

Many projects from this year's Senior Design Expo are continuations of projects begun by graduating classes from years past. Next year, many of the projects spotlighted will be progressed further by the sharp engineering and computing minds of the CEC's Class of 2025. The Miami University community looks forward to the next generation of discovery and breakthrough!

Rachel Olp, Chemical Engineering major and Paper Engineering minor, demonstrates her team's corrugated box design.

Brice Graham and Jessica Fornshell, both Chemical Engineering majors, demonstrate their team's Chem-E car. This hydrogen-powered vehicle has qualified for the AIChE national championship in November.

Dhruv Birla, Marguerite Smith, Ian Pascoe, and Teddy Lea showcase the electric vehicle (EV) powertrain they created for the RedHawk Racing FSAE team.

Team members of Purrfect Health demonstrate the litter box attachment they designed to monitor cat health and activity.

A team member from the Mixed Meta Machine Senior Design project demonstrates their virtual interaction system designed to allow users to control virtual and physical components via the Meta Quest 3 platform.

Members of the Softball Tournament Planner Senior Design team (second place winner from the Computer Science and Software Engineering department) showcase the application they developed.

Polina Eskin demonstrates her team's biomimetic approach to helmet padding, designed to absorb more impact energy while dissipating that energy throughout the helmet to stop it from reaching the skull.

Sawyer Martini and Sam Sulek discuss improvements of the VTOL Aircraft with Payload Delivery System, a project designed by Sawyer Martini and Hayden Dutro.

Erik Johnson speaks with Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department chair Chi-Hao Cheng on the success of his team's mmWave Radar for Search and Rescue Operations, which was the 3rd place winner for the ECE department.

Footnotes

Photos by Scott Kissell and Tony Tribble; Video by Saksham Shrestha; Written by Katie Rottner

FootNotes

Photos by Scott Kissell and Tony Tribble; Video by Saksham Shrestha; Written by Katie Rottner

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