A device that could save lives when things go wrong during surgery and a wearable to ease airport navigation for visually impaired people shared top honors at the Spring 2024 Capstone Design Expo April 23.

For the second Expo in a row, two teams tied in judging for the best overall project: Team Seekr with their navigation aid and Team Left Atrial Files with a catheter-based tool that quickly and safely retrieves a dislodged medical device in a patient’s heart. 

They were just two of 204 teams from 12 schools and four different Georgia Tech colleges at the Expo, a showcase of students’ semester-long senior design projects. An army of judges from industry and across campus selected the top project in each discipline, best interdisciplinary team, and overall best project. 

The five biomedical engineers on the Left Atrial Files team created a tool they called EmPath to recapture a dislodged clot-blocking device that’s implanted in the heart. 

In some patients with an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation, doctors place a small device in a pocket of their heart where blood clots often form. Those clots can leave the heart and cause strokes. But sometimes, after doctors insert the device, it gets loose and endangers the patient’s life. 

The EmPath tool uses a small net to capture it and a claw to quickly pull it out through a catheter.

It’s a project that was personal for several team members who’ve lost family members to strokes and related complications, including Emily Yan.

“My grandfather suffered from a stroke. And we believe it's one of the major reasons that he passed away,” Yan said. “We wanted to make something that would be able to save someone's life in a situation where they can't take blood thinners and they have to go under this procedure. If something goes wrong, there’s something to save them.”

Yan said the team has filed a provisional patent on their device alongside their sponsor, physician Kevin Graham.

The other top project aimed to restore independence to blind and visually impaired airline passengers. Team members found that travelers with limited vision often use video calls with friends or relatives to help them navigate. Others depend on airport personnel pushing them to the gate in a wheelchair.

Their solution is a device the size of a crossbody bag that passengers could borrow from the airport and turn in as they board their flight. It offers voice directions and beeps to help them make their way through the terminal.