Story by Lyndsey Lewis
Photos by Candler Hobbs
A lug nut starter that can save time on assembly lines took home the grand prize at the Fall 2013 Capstone Design Expo, the biannual smorgasbord of engineering and design projects.
Created by six mechanical engineering (ME) majors collectively known as All Torqued Up and supported by General Motors, the device can quickly place a lug nut on a tire so that workers can use a more powerful torque gun to tighten it. The team won $2,000, and its members – Jeremiah Roberts, Pill Alexander, Chris Gintoli, Jordan Mazaira, Eric Vande Ven and Jeremy Wooten – hooted when All Torqued Up was announced as overall winner.
Georgia Tech’s Capstone Design Expo features projects from undergraduates’ senior design courses, in which they work in teams to research problems, create prototypes and offer solutions. Held Dec. 5 at McCamish Pavilion, the Fall Expo showcased the work of 130 teams from multiple engineering and design fields.
During the four-hour event, about 3,800 people strolled through the facility to check out an automated toy sanitizer, a hair dye that can be safely used by pregnant women, and a robotic hand that mimics a user’s movement via a Microsoft Kinect. Because each major present has its own award category, several top creations can shine.
The most heavily represented fields at the Fall Expo are typically ME, biomedical engineering (BME), electrical and computer engineering (ECE), and industrial design. This semester, though, students studying industrial and systems engineering (ISyE) participated too, making the Fall event one of the largest capstone expos at any university.
"It’s so wonderful to see the Georgia Tech community coming together to celebrate the inventive and entrepreneurial spirit in our graduating seniors," said Assistant Professor Craig Forest, who helps coordinate the event.
Seniors spend an entire semester working on their projects, often partnering with industry and research sponsors to seek solutions to real-world challenges. By studying doctors’ schedules, for example, a team of ISyE majors helped the Emory Orthopaedics & Spine Center boost patient satisfaction and save money.
Some of the work on display was supported by local entrepreneurs. ME’s Team Chill, supported by Tim Harrington, developed a product for serving wine at the proper temperature of 62 degrees. This team is now considering partnering with Harrington and taking their product to market.
Other projects were just plain fun. Take the exhibit from the 3+1 team (consisting of three MEs and one architecture student), which presented a musical tile floor. The group members, who all play instruments, said they came together through their mutual love of music. These students were enrolled in an interdisciplinary course called Design/Think/Make/Do, and while they weren't officially competing in the Expo, they presented and explained their projects at McCamish as well.
Other cross-major collaborations were in the running for prizes. The award winner from the interdisciplinary category, Inovein, was Georgia Tech's first ever ME-BME-ECE team (also supported by an entrepreneurial firm, DKF Investments, LLC.)
Meanwhile, the Eye in the Sky group members – who also came from Design/Think/Make/Do – presented work on body-gesture control for unmanned aerial vehicles.
"The whole class," said team member Rajitha Siyasena, “revolves around the fact that we can make anything we want.”
Jordan Shields contributed to this story.
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WINNERS
Mechanical engineering prize
Stringineers: for tennis shops and frequent tennis players, the Rambler Tennis Weaver automates the most time-consuming part of stringing, which is the weaving, pulling, and clamping process of the cross strings (supported by Autodesk)
Gowtham Govind, Dhrumil Desai, Juan Melian, Michael Fogg, John Coker, Jordan Thomas-Green
Biomedical engineering prize: Tie between:
-Motor Mouth: a dynamic jaw repositioning device that uses biofeedback to help sufferers of sleep apnea
Charles Kane, Robert Kretschmar, Tim Leigh, Maggie Matheny
- Thoracic Park: a minimally invasive method for repairing mitral valve deformation in the heart, a contributing cause of heart failure
Hilary Lynch, Keval Tilva, Arun Kumar, Harrison Bartlett
Industrial design prize
Team Okabashi: a system for assembling 2 part sandals, supported by Okabashi, a local sandal producer who currently assembles them by hand
Andrea Hunt, Taylor Johns, Josh Mittelman
Electrical and computer engineering prize
Tube Amp Group: an analog amp combing the authentic sound of a fully analog tube guitar amplifier with the versatility and programmability of a digital guitar amplifier
Adam Bowen, Matthias Denu, Nathan Minor, Anup Omprakash, David Turmel
Industrial and systems engineering prize: To be determined at an ISyE competition. Finalists:
- Team Coca-Cola Refreshments: optimizing inventory levels at three bottling plants by implementing new ordering policies for the raw materials
Erinn Manby, Drew Downey, Meredeth Freeman, Kevin Jamison, Sahil Ramakrishnan, Natalie Souther, Max Tanski
- The Home Depot: improving labor allocation and process flow at The Home Depot paint desk through a simulation model and labor scheduling tool
Lauren Kley, Drew Keller, Michael Gilkenson, Bryce Ferguson, Robert Faulk, Silvana Vivanco, Jing Mei Ho, Melanie Ostis
- United Soft Plastics: improving the order fulfillment process by eliminating quality issues and late shipments, and improving internal processes
Yash Dabriwal, Po-Hsian Wang, Patrick Koehler, Chang Woong Yoon, Patrick Chen, Dylan Arnold, Cathy Nguyen, John Kincheloe
Interdisciplinary prize
Inovein: device aids nurses in placing needles into neonatal infants for IV line installation and blood draws (supported by DKF Investments, LLC)
Virginia Lin, Doug Derito, Chris Harless, Andy Lustig, Rachel Moore
People’s Choice prize
The Home Depot: improving labor allocation and process flow at The Home Depot paint desk through a simulation model and labor scheduling tool
Lauren Kley, Drew Keller, Michael Gilkenson, Bryce Ferguson, Robert Faulk, Silvana Vivanco, Jing Mei Ho, Melanie Ostis
Grand prize
All Torqued Up: device puts a lug nut onto a tire hub in order for a factory line operator to use a more powerful torque gun to tighten it completely (supported by General Motors)
Jeremiah Roberts, Pill Alexander, Chris Gintoli, Jordan Mazaira, Eric Vande Ven and Jeremy Wooten