This year’s Senior Design Expo and Pitch Competition hosted by the College of Engineering attracted over one thousand attendees–800 in person at the Shalala Student Center and over 200 via livestream.
The annual event gives graduating seniors the opportunity to showcase their capstone projects, bringing together the skills they’ve learned over their years of study to create a solution to a real-world problem.
Attendees heard from students presenting on topics ranging from app-based hearing loss prevention, AI-driven detection of HPV and cervical cancer in marginalized communities, and basil farming driven by internet of things and machine learning. Read on to learn more about some of the teams designing a better tomorrow.
Protecting students’ hearing
“We built an app to provide people real-time feedback on their exposure to loud noise,” said Lauren Rothschild, biomedical engineering student. Annella Durand, Serene Mattis, and Rothschild created Hear Me Out: An App for Hearing Loss Prevention. “Hearing loss can be permanent, and interventions like ours can save someone’s hearing as they age. The app alerts users that may be at risk for noise-induced hearing loss and allows for periodic hearing tests to better track changes in hearing.”
Students build lunar mining robot
Not far from the entrance, attendees stopped to admire a robot built piece by piece. The University chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (UM ASME) displayed the lunar mining robot they designed, built, and tested as part of the NASA Lunabotics competition. (Picture an all-metal lawn mower you might see on the moon.)
“I learned a valuable life lesson from this,” said Praveen Magesh, mechanical engineering student and incoming president of ASME. “Everything that can fail will,” he joked. “But really, we’re proud of what we were able to produce. We really had to lean on each other as a team to build our prototype.”
Engineering devices to addressing health inequities
“Our team developed a novel 2-in-1 testing kit to perform an HPV and reinvented colposcopy test to analyze the cervix for any lesions and abnormalities,” said Roma Williams, biomedical engineering student.
The team–HPWe: THE FLOWER–composed of Williams, Colette Thomas, Matthew Giammanco, and Rivaldo Harris received support from the Dr. Jonathan Rothberg Catalyzer Award for their innovative, impactful work.
THE FLOWER, the 2-in-1 testing kit, uses artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to serve as a pre-diagnosis tool to help doctors accurately diagnose patients and ultimately decrease subjectivity in screening.
The farm that runs itself with AI
Further down the ballroom, one team offered a QR code for free basil. "Our goal was to leverage hardware engineering and the cloud to revolutionize food production using IoT driven precision agriculture,” said Munir Hafeel, electrical and computer engineering student. "By collecting millions of data points each month, we are able to drive real time control, allowing us to control pH, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and light, to fine-tune our system to provide our crop with everything it needs.”
If you’d like to learn more about the team made up of Andres Palacios, Daniel Katsale, Kelan Zielinski, and Hafeel, click here to read a recent profile of the project.
A hands-free device for blind navigation
AudiSee, built by Mac Clifton, Vivien Dominick, Courtney Carduner, and Sergio Ganchala, is a navigation tool for people who are visually impaired, allowing users to confidently navigate the world on their own. Similar to bats using echolocation to understand their environment in the dark, the AudiSee translates the location of objects in front of a person into audio cues which the person can understand, forming a topographic mental map of their surroundings.
“Blindness has resulted in an extreme lack of independence for far too long,” said Mac Clifton, biomedical engineering student. “Embarking on this 'AudiSee' means giving people access to the spatial information which they cannot receive through their eyes. The amount of information the AudiSee provides compared to methods like the white cane or guide dogs is analogous to Morse code smoke signals versus FaceTime!”
“Eliminate manual configuration” of light displays
The corner of the ballroom featured an especially eye-catching display–multiple moving head light fixtures one would find at a concert. The team–made up of Rebecca Camejo, Richard Morales, and Dylan Carter–rebuilt from scratch industry standard protocols (DMX and RDM) that control a set of lighting fixtures while also receiving real-time status updates.
“Rebuilding RDM from scratch taught us a lot about status monitoring and how to eliminate manual configuration,” said Camejo, software engineering student. “RDM acts as the logistical component the industry has always needed to reduce manual configuration and allow for an entire lighting system’s monitoring on one interface.”
FPL senior design capstone project
Toni-Ann Farquharson, a student in the BS/MS Industrial & Systems Engineering Program, led this year’s FPL senior design capstone project, which is focused on finding the optimal way to secure electrical facilities. There are thousands of electrical facilities around the country, helping distribute the nation’s electricity needs. However, security is uneven and costly. This year’s FPL senior design capstone project uses modeling and data analysis to determine ideal camera placement for effective and efficient security.
“Working with FPL on this security optimization project has challenged me in new ways and allowed me to grow both personally and professionally,” said Farquharson. “I learned a new programming language within a short timeframe and created a fully functioning algorithm to detect optimal locations for cameras in any given facility.”
Better methods of ornamental aquarium fish shipping
One team sought to change the way ornamental aquarium fish are transported to the pet shop. “Traditionally, fish move from bag to tank to bag and they’re continually disturbed,” said Lilian Sanchez, industrial and systems engineering student. “We created a new process that not only saves the lives of fish but saves money for ornamental aquarium fish companies.” The team–Oceans, Reefs, and Aquariums Shipping Redesign–composed of Sanchez, Jacob Leader, and Sergio Rivera studied the work processes at an aquaculture farm to produce their recommendations, which the company may implement in the near future.
Senior Design Expo sponsors
Our industry partners and sponsors are crucial partners in the real-world education the College of Engineering provides its students.
Expo Sponsor: ESP Apartments
Capstone Sponsors: FPL; Fortinet
Expo and Capstone Sponsor: Ryder
Senior Design Expo 2023 awards information
Departmental awards
Biomedical Engineering (BME): AudiSee: Margaret Anne Clifton, Vivien Dominick, Courtney Carduner, Sergio Ganchala Pizarro & Joll-E Kids: Joy Jackson, Kailyn Nuñez, Erin Ravindran
Civil and Architectural Engineering (CAE): Green Loft Miami by Lojic: Iris Vaquer, Laurel Schmidt, Omar Kayali, Collin Taylor, Jonathan Tong
Chemical and Environmental Engineering (CET): Miami Dade Pump Station 1 Renovation: Nina Couture, Jennifer DiGiulio, Danni Mackler, Kaitlyn Wright
Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE): Biotanical - IoT Driven Crop Production System: Andres Palacios Alvarado, Munir Hafeel, Daniel Katsale
Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE): Mount Sinai: Waste Segregation Operational Review: Fatmah Alamer, Kamil Asali, Jayka Tisminezky
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE): SmartStrike: Sensor-Integrated Baseball Bat: Alexander Ezzy, Eben Butler, Andrew Lahrheim, Ahmed Mahmoud, Scott Pyle, Kara Samuel
Committee Awards
Best Display: RDM Field Controller: A New Approach to Lighting Control for Entertainment Technicians: Rebecca Camejo, Richard Morales, Dylan Carter
Best Poster: ORA - Review and Redesign of the Packout Department: Jacob Leader, Sergio Rivera, Lillian Sanchez
Best Video: AudiSee: Margaret Anne Clifton, Vivien Dominick, Courtney Carduner, Sergio Ganchala Pizarro
People’s Choice
1st Place: Solazo Engineering: Alejandra Mendoza, Jose Orellana, Mojania Denis, Ryan Misewicz, Mohammad Alkhayat
2nd Place: Smart Strike: The Sensor Integrated Baseball Bat: Eben Butler, Alexander Ezzy, Andrew Lahrheim, Ahmed Mahmoud, Scott Pyle, Kara Samuel
3rd Place: Bascom Palmer Pre-Appointment Operational Review: Fallyn Brody, Casey Grafstein, Samantha Yoon
College of Engineering Awards
Industry Impact: Biotanical - IoT Driven Crop Production System: Andres Palacios Alvarado, Munir Hafeel, Daniel Katsale
Dr. Shihab Asfour Best Senior Design Project for the College of Engineering: Smart Strike: The Sensor Integrated Baseball Bat: Eben Butler, Alexander Ezzy, Andrew Lahrheim, Ahmed Mahmoud, Scott Pyle, Kara Samuel
College of Engineering Pitch Competition Awards
1st Place: Biotanical: Munir Hafeel, Andres Palacios, and Daniel Katsale
2nd Place: Toro Future: Ryu Nitta
3rd Place: Canine Connect: Roni Kennedy, Grant Martin
Miami Rothberg Catalyzer Award
1st Place: HemoFix: Joseph Cherubin, Arcari Timothy
2nd Place: Gaitway Enterprises: Ravi Akhmadeyev, Shlaina Fleurisme, Allison Kelley, Noah Koike
