![\"images\/ecomm05172010\/design2a.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.engr.uconn.edu\/images\/ecomm05172010\/design2a.jpg\")
On Friday, April 30th, graduating seniors showcased the culminating projects of their undergraduate years in a once-yearly expo that draws visitors from across the region. This year, for the first time, Senior Design Demonstration day was staged in the venerable Wilbur Cross building. There, scores of student teams discussed their projects, demonstrated prototype models and enthused about the experience of solving real-world engineering challenges.<\/p>\n
The demonstrations are the grand finale to a process that begins many months before, when students embark on one- or two-semester design projects, often in close association with an industrial mentor or other sponsor and a faculty advisor. The projects immerse student teams in exploring a genuine design challenge — for example, a manufacturing plant floor problem or access issue for a disabled person. Working with the sponsor and faculty advisor, the students typically consider a range of possible solutions before selecting one for full-scale testing and development.<\/p>\n
![\"images\/ecomm05172010\/design2b.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.engr.uconn.edu\/images\/ecomm05172010\/design2b.jpg\")
Dean of Engineering Mun Y. Choi remarked, “The Senior Design projects represent that euphoric juncture where students apply everything they have learned in the classroom toward analyzing and solving a genuine design challenge. Our students gain invaluable experience and insight about the types of real problems facing industry. In turn, our sponsors benefit from having smart, dedicated and creative students tackling these design challenges. It’s a win-win scenario for everyone.”<\/p>\n
The April 30 event drew large crowds of visitors, including representatives from industry, UConn engineering alumni, proud families, Connecticut media and friends. A number of large projects spilled over onto the spacious Wilbur Cross stair landing outside, where attendees were able to view the projects in action. These included several projects, funded by the National Science Foundation and developed by Biomedical Engineering (BME) students, for 10-year old Annalee Hughes and six-year old Joey Toce — both of whom are afflicted with cerebral palsy — along with a solar array associated with an Electrical & Computer Engineering project. Please see this related story<\/a>.<\/p>\n While most engineering seniors showcased their projects at the Wilbur Cross event, graduating seniors in the Management & Engineering for Manufacturing, Computer Science & Engineering, and Chemical Engineering programs presented their projects in separate demonstrations.<\/p>\n The School of Engineering gratefully acknowledged this year’s corporate sponsors: Alstom Power, ASML, Bevilaqua Knight, Bodycote HIP, Capewell, Covidien, Dominion Nuclear, Dr. John Russell, General Dynamics\/Electric Boat, General Electric, GKN Structures, Hamilton Sundstrand, Henkel Loctite, Integra-Cast, Jacobs Vehicle System, OSIM, Otis Elevator, Phonon, Pratt & Whitney, Qualtech, RBC Bearings, Rogers Corporation, Dr. Jonathan Russell, Siemon Company, Schick Wilkinson Sword, UTC Power, Westinghouse Electric, Windham Dental Group, and Wiremold Legrand. Other sponsors included the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology, U.S. Army Research Office, the National Science Foundation and the UConn Foundation.<\/p>\n To learn about sponsorship opportunities for the 2010-11 school year, please contact the appropriate individual below:<\/p>\n Team Awards — Juried Senior Design Competition, 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n Electrical & Computer Engineering<\/strong><\/p>\n 1st place 2nd place Management & Engineering for Manufacturing<\/strong> – Poster Competition<\/p>\n First Prize<\/strong> Second Prize<\/strong> Third Prize<\/strong> Materials Science & Engineering<\/strong><\/p>\n First Place Tie<\/strong>; Each team received $1,000. Title: Design and Test a Magnetic Shape Memory Actuator Mechanical Engineering<\/strong><\/p>\n Professor’s Award – $1,500<\/strong> First place<\/strong> – $1,500 Second place<\/strong> – $1,000 Third place<\/strong> – $500 [tie] Title: Compact Jaw Force Measurement Device On Friday, April 30th, graduating seniors showcased the culminating projects of their undergraduate years in a once-yearly expo that draws visitors from across the region. This year, for the first time, Senior Design Demonstration day was staged in the venerable Wilbur Cross building. There, scores of student teams discussed their projects, demonstrated prototype models and enthused about the experience of solving real-world engineering challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 15:38:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"images\/ecomm05172010\/design2c.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.engr.uconn.edu\/images\/ecomm05172010\/design2c.jpg\")
The Mechanical Engineering (ME), Materials Science & Engineering (MSE), Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE), and Management & Engineering for Manufacturing (MEM) programs featured juried competitions in which top projects were selected for special awards. The awardees for each juried competition appear below.<\/p>\n\n
\n Project<\/strong>: Surface Contour Profiler
\n Team<\/strong>: Corey Benoit (EE), Joseph Larosa (EE), Kevin Perkins (EE), and Andrew Tan (EE\/MGMT)
\n Sponsor<\/strong>: Phonon Corporation
\n Advisor<\/strong>: Mohammad Tehranipoor<\/p>\n
\n Project:<\/strong> Health Monitoring of Structures with Cable Members Under Tension
\n Team<\/strong>: Eric Snapper (EE), Jeffrey Urban (Computer Engineering) and Christopher Von Kohorn (ME)
\n Sponsor<\/strong>: Dr. Jonathan Russell
\n Advisors<\/strong>: Sung-Yeul Park (EE) and Kevin Murphy (ME)<\/p>\n
\n Team: Christopher Palko and Sonny Patel
\n Sponsor: Frito Lay<\/p>\n
\n Team: Emily Wijas and Kristen Farley
\n Sponsor: Dymax<\/p>\n
\n Team: Kyle Karpuska and Eric Sachs
\n Sponsor: Pratt & Whitney<\/p>\n
\n Title: Optimization of the Thermal Treatment Process to Control the Austenite Reversion in Maraging 250 Steel
\n Team: Jeffrey Riesterer
\n Sponsor: Pratt & Whitney Aircraft
\n Advisors: Dr. Agnieszka Wusatowka-Sarnek (industry) and Mark Aindow (faculty)<\/p>\n
\n Team: Shawn Fonseca, Nicholas Carroll and Michael Santone (ME)
\n Sponsor: General Electric
\n Advisors: Thomas Papallo (industry) and Pamir Alpay (faculty)<\/p>\n
\n Title: CGS Shearing Interferometry Adapted to the Nano-World
\n Team: Christopher Madormo and Maxim Budyansky
\n Sponsor: University of Connecticut
\n Advisor: George Lykotrafitis<\/p>\n
\n Title: Design and Test a Magnetic Shape Memory Alloy Actuator
\n Team: Shawn Fonseca and Michael Santone
\n Sponsor: General Electric Consumer & Industrial
\n Advisors: Tom Papallo and Brent Kumfer (sponsor) and Jiong Tang (faculty)<\/p>\n
\n Title: Metering Tank Bearing Failure & Design Analysis
\n Team: Erik Kong and Stephen Symski
\n Sponsor: Rogers Corporation
\n Advisors: Chad Waddell (sponsor) and Bi Zhang (faculty)<\/p>\n
\n Title: Cyanoacrylate Fixture Time Measuring System
\n Team: Steven Cios, Michael Galdo and Jeffrey Rudolph
\n Sponsor: Henkel Loctite
\n Advisors: Pat Courtney (sponsor) and Chengyu Cao (faculty)<\/p>\n
\n Team: Brendan O’Brien, Anne McManus and Beau Larrow
\n Sponsor: Windham Laboratories
\n Advisors: Dr. Dennis Flanagan (sponsor) and Horea Ilies (faculty)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"