By: Eli Freund, Editorial Communications Manager, UConn School of Engineering

After a year’s worth of sleepless nights, highs-and-lows, and bated anticipation, 236 Senior Design groups proudly stood by their projects at one of the most anticipated School of Engineering events of the year—Senior Design Demonstration Day.

With over 800 senior University of Connecticut School of Engineering undergraduate students participating, projects this year ranged from an autonomous firefighting drone, to a cloud-based smart storage system for a local aerospace manufacturer.

Each of the projects presented at the Demonstration Day, sponsored by more than 100 organizations, provide students with extensive hands-on experience, and an opportunity to work on real-world problems presented by sponsoring organizations. Sponsors invest time and resources, and work in-depth with their individual groups and consulting faculty members to create innovative solutions that are often integrated back into their organization.

The sponsoring organizations, which span the public and private sectors, include companies like Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, General Dynamics Electric Boat, Comcast ,and governmental organizations like the City of Hartford, the Town of Wethersfield, NASA and the Connecticut Department of Transportation.  

During the day, students present to faculty, staff, industry sponsors, and guests, with a team of judges on hand to determine the winners from every department. Below are the 2019 awardees from each department (faculty advisor in parentheses):

Biomedical Engineering

First Place 
Team 6, “Mechanical Assay for the Evaluation of Breast Cancer Pharmaceuticals”

Members: Krishna Dixit, Zoe Moscato, Quinn Shields (Dr. Kazunori Hoshino)

 Second Place
Team 4, “Intravascular Hemorrhage Control Device for Trauma to the lliac Arteries”

Members: Kyle Bystrianyk, Samuel Ganem, Bennett Propp, Robert Silverman, Paige Woods (Dr. Ki Chon)

Third Place

Team 27, “DST Series EEA Stapler Staple Line Wound Protector”

Members: Jeffrey Baroody, Kenneth Berkery, Eric D’Souza (Dr. Bin Feng)

Honorable Mention

Team 26, “Multifactorial Clavicle Plate Design and Strength Analysis”

Members: Sayan Basu, Danielle Caefer, Devin Finnerty (Dr. Krystyna Gielo-Perczak)

 

Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

First Place
Team 19, “Tumor on a Chip”

Members: Ugne Kirvelevicius, Kush Kumar, John Pettersen, Albert Tuli IV (Dr. Mu-Ping Nieh)

Second Place
Team 18, “Spatial Atomic Layer Deposition Fluid Modeling for Thermal Glass Applications”

Members: Howie Craig, Tori Danis, Alex Oliveira, John Yao (Dr. Brian Willis)

Third Place

Team 15, “Reduction of Pt Loading in PEM Electrolyzers using RSDT”

Members: Patrick Mascoli, Soha Nadeem, Andrea Naranjo Soledad (Dr. Radenka Maric)

 Honorable Mention

 Team 14, “Optimal Design of a Sustainable Intensified Food Production System”

 Members: Alberto Aguillon, Shaylin Cetegen, Alanna Gado (Dr. Matthew Stuber)

Honorable Mention

Team 11, “Modeling the Fluidization of Carbon Black for Post-Production Treatment”

 Members: Keith Loureiro, Jimi McLellan, Ian Puckette, Kamil Wielechowski (Dr. George Bollas)

 

Civil and Environmental Engineering

First Place 

Team 22 (Civil), “National Chromium Site Remediation”

Members: Cameron Criniti, Caleb Erhard, Trenton Kowalec, Robin Rittgers (Dr. Nefeli Bompoti)

 

Team 4 (Environmental), “Quantum Biopower FOG Treatment”

Members: Donald Curtiss, Aaron Golab (Dr. Baikun Li)

 

Second Place
Team 10 (Civil), “Fenton River Embankment Improvement”

Members: Cameron Criniti, Caleb Erhard, Trenton Kowalec, Robin Rittgers (Dr. Lanbo Liu)

 

Team 6 (Environmental), “Remediation of an Oil Terminal Site”

Members: Daniel Zeigher, Jennifer Mulqueen, Katie Katrichis (Dr. Amine Dahmani)

 

Third Place

Team 5 (Civil), “Traffic Sign Replacement Strategy and Intersection Design”

Members: Daniel Terach, Gavin Metsack, Ben Jednak, Michael Pagano (Dr. Nicholas Lownes)

 

Team 3 (Environmental), “National Chromium Site Remediation”

Members: Ian Adomeit, Tony Arreaga, Ginger Turner, Sikai Zheng (Dr. Nefeli Bompoti)

 

Computer Science and Engineering

First Place
Team 26, “Secure Embedded Architecture for the 1042 Processer”

Members: Brandon Renick, Cameron Morris, Killian Greene, Jacob Boislard (Dr. Bing Wang)

 

Second Place
Team 37, “Predictive Maintenance through Digitalization of Manufacturing Indictors”

Members: Nathan Hom, Mike Marandino, Kyle Berry, and Jon Simonin (Dr. Song Han, Dr. Mousumi Roy)

 

Third Place
Team 3, “Synchrony Financial Voice Experience”

Members: Mariem Ouni, Richie Viscardi, Fitch Spencer, and Zachary Galica (Dr. Yufeng Wu)

 

Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Place
Team 1915, “Electromagnetic Expulsion of a Cylindrical Body from an Outer Tube”

Members: Christian Corwel, Stevan Webb, George Zoghbi (Dr. Abhishek Dutta)

 

Second Place
Team 1901, “Autonomous Firefighting Helicopter”

Members: Ryan Heilemann, Kerry Jones, Joshua Steil (Dr. Ashwin Dani)

 

Third Place
Team 1914, “Implantable Glucose Sensor Communication System”

Members: Luke Boylan, Jack Davidson, Abhi Patni (Dr. John Chandy)

 

Honorable Mention

 Team 1910, “Real-time and Secure Wireless Systems based on Software Defined Radio”

 Members: Nicholas Cacace, Md Islam, Anam Qureshi (Dr. Shengli Zhou)

 

Honorable Mention

Team 1918, “Analysis of Constrained Pockets in the Transmission System”

 Members: Benjamin Albano, Noah Gonzalez, Tara Stokes (Dr. Peng Zhang)

 

 

Management and Engineering for Manufacturing

First Place (tie)
Team 2, “Logistics VNA Material Movement Analysis”

Members: Kenneth Jordan, Victoria Marino, Zeen Zhang (Dr. Mousumi Roy)

 and

Team 6, “WickAway Smart Automatic Candle Extinguisher”

Members: Max Aronow, Justin Cooper, Ray Fagan (Dr. Liang Zhang)

 

Third Place (tie)
Team 7, “Cost and Risk Analysis for Nano-coating Process of PEM Electrolyzers”

Members: Suzana Amaral, Omkar Patil (Dr. Craig Calvert)

and

Team 8, “IoT for Predictive Maintenance”

Members: Nathan Hom, Mike Marandino (Dr. Mousumi Roy and Dr. Song Han)

 

Materials Science and Engineering

First Place
Team 13, “Design of a Machine Learning Algorithm to Design/Discover Layered Materials for Battery Applications”

Members: Hetal Patel (Dr. Avinash Dongare)

 

Second Place
Team 9, “Post-Processing Heat Treatments of Additively Manufactures Aluminum Alloy, AlSi10Mg”

Members: Beril Tonyali, Avery Gray, Lara Huapaya Royas (Dr. Seok-Woo Lee)

 

Third Place (tie)
Team 12, “Compression Molding of Carbon Block Filters”

Members: Iwona Wrobel, Jordan Gomes, Linghao Li (Dr. Stefan Schaffoener)

 and

Team 4, “Sheet Metal Properties and their Effects on Deep Drawing”

Members: Grace Quinlan, Steven Kha, Joao Carlos Barbosa (Dr. Lesley Frame)

 

Mechanical Engineering

First Place
Team 19, “Design of a Proportional Flow Valve”

Members: Luke Nichols, Ben Swartzell, Vincent Zhang (Dr. Chenyu Cao)

 

Second Place
Team 46, “Automated Positioning System to Take High Precision Measurements on a Radio Frequency Filter”

Members: Bobby Bickley, Jonathon Jacobs, Matthew Kramer (Dr. Bryan Weber)

 

Third Place (tie)
Team 60, “Design, Development and Fabrication of a Right Sized Flat Pattern Laser Cutter”

Members: Eli Gates, Leah Morasutti, Michelle Reinert, Zeke Pare (Dr. Vito Moreno)

and 

Team 62, “Alternative Cable Fatigue Testing Machine”

Members: Ted Blake, Steve LoPresti, Guillermo Mercado (Dr. David M. Pierce)

 

Professor’s Award (tie)
Team 3, “Analysis and Optimization of a High-Speed Catamaran Airboat”

Members: Connor McNaboe, Andrew Yin (Dr. Georgios Matheou)

and 

Team 57, “Surface Finish Impact on Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop for Additively Manufactured Fins”

Members: Katrina Awad, Vincent Chen, Justin Longton (Dr. Chih-Jen Sung)

 

For more information on the Senior Design Program, please visit our website: https://seniordesign.engr.uconn.edu.