Mechanical Engineering Grabs Spotlight at Fall Capstone

Story by Ben Wright, Photos by Candler Hobbs and Susan Volkert

Tuesday, 06 December 2016

"It's too hard to talk... I'm freaking out too much."

Corinne Maxey from the team Too Inspired to be Tired was so excited about her team winning the best overall project award at the 2016 Fall Capstone Design Expo that she couldn't talk and had to get a teammate to explain their project. The foursome of mechanical engineers capped a great night for ME, which had students on three prize-wining teams including the top interdisciplinary project and top mechanical engineering project.

To earn the top overall award Too Inspired to be Tired worked with their sponsor Ethicon to automate the process for manufacturing the SecureStrap, which is used in laparoscopic hernia repair.

"We were not only able to automate what they're currently doing but also provide a couple of other process improvements to make the process easier," said team spokesperson Neha Sinha. "We found a way to do it that mimics their current process so they don't have to go through process validation again, which can take up to five years. It was an easily implemented new automated procedure. They expressed a ton of excitement about the process and plan to implement it immediately."

The project included a lot of electrical components and process analysis, so the team borrowed from other disciplines like electrical engineering and ISyE to get the product finished.

"It was a multi-disciplinary project, but we weren't a multi-discipline team, so we had to wear a lot of hats and push ourselves," said Corinne, once she caught her breath. With the semester wrapping up and commencement just around the corner the team will have a few days to celebrate before they scatter to work for GE, Shell, Boeing, and Eli Lilly in various cities.

Overall this edition of Capstone, which was held on Tuesday night at McCamish Pavilion, included 117 teams from six schools and two colleges. Team PH751 was one of the teams to beat heading into the event and they came out on top of the interdisciplinary category after building a high performance hybrid vehicle from the ground up.

Sponsorships guided a lot of the projects, like Raising the Steaks, which was commissioned by Cattle Time to design a drone mounted RFID scanning system which takes inventory of cattle in a herd. The drone flies routes autonomously once programmed for a specific enclosure. Their efforts earned them the top prize in electrical and computer engineering.

As in Capstones past, healthcare was a popular topic among the projects. This year teams designed a new catheter tip, an absorbable implanted contraceptive, reassessed the CDC's HIV risk evaluation screening process for men who have sex with men, developed adjustable parallel bars children to use in physiotherapy, built a seat that can be used in showers to help the elderly bath, and much more.

With graduate school or jobs waiting for them in the new year many students are faced with the task of deciding if their projects will be taken to market or not. Some have already filed patents and others are considering licensing their products. A select few were invited to compete for the Inventure Prize in the spring which acts as a springboard for a potential career as an entrepreneur.

Regardless of what happens next, the students have shown that there are no limits to what Georgia Tech students can create when they work together.