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By University Communications
May 21, 2007

Student engineers won at total of $13,500 in 18 award categories at UA's 2007 Engineering Design Day.

Design Day 2007 included 59 projects that were judged by more than 70 practicing engineers.

Some Design Day projects may eventually be commercialized. Others will provide important experimental data for companies that sponsored the projects or will become integral parts of ongoing engineering research projects at UA.

The winners included:

• Lockheed Martin Best Overall Design Award ($1,000)
Material Handling System for use in Medical Grade Clean Room

This project included design of an ergonomic, operator-assisted device to safely transport a heated fixture from a press to a working surface.

Class: AME 412 (Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering)
Project Sponsor: W.L. Gore & Assoc., Medical Division
Award Sponsor: Lockheed Martin
Team members: Tyler Brown, Garrett Johnson, Zachary Eyde, Rafael Gutierrez, Peter Zeigler

• Ventana Innovation in Engineering Award ($1,000)
Adjunct Missile Seeker Deployment Mechanism

The team designed a mechanism that will deploy an infrared seeker in the final stages of a missile's flight.

Class: ENGR 498, (Interdisciplinary Design)
Project Sponsor: Raytheon Missile Systems
Award Sponsor: Ventana Medical Systems
Team members: Scott Nielson, Karl Heiman, Philip Pierson, Ryan Moore, David Kraemer, Thomas Jefferson

• BAE Best Overall Software Design ($1,000)
Integrated Vehicle Assessment System

The team designed a system that will inspect the undercarriage of vehicles at ports of entry. It also compares license numbers with vehicle data to detect stolen vehicles or license plates.

Class: SIE 442 (Systems and Industrial Engineering)
Project Sponsor: Alion Science and Technology
Award Sponsor: BAE
Team members: Victor Foulk, David Pietraszeski, Luca Rassenti

• Texas Instruments Design Contest Award ($3,000)
Ultra-Low Distortion Sine Wave Source for Analog-to-Digital Converter Characterization

This team developed a self-contained sine wave source that connects to Texas Instruments evaluation modules to test the company's high-resolution analog-to-digital converter.

Class: ECE 498 (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Project Sponsor: Texas Instruments
Award Sponsor: Texas Instruments
Team Members: Jyh-Kai Hsu, Grant Sides, Joohwa Kim, David Price, Martin Schaeffer, Brandon Baloo

• Honeywell Team Leadership Awards ($250 each)
Sergio Johnson and Joe Fico

This award recognizes students who exhibit outstanding teamwork skills. Joe Fico is part of the IEEE Micromouse team and Sergio Johnson is a member of the Low Spatial Frequency Restoration for a Fizeau Interferometer team.

Award Sponsor: Honeywell

• Advanced Ceramics Research Best Interdisciplinary Proof of Concept Award ($500)
Vacuum Sampling Pump

The team produced a lightweight, user-friendly and more automatic pump that is used for collecting soil vapor samples. Collecting the samples helps in detecting leaks in pipelines and storage containers.

Class: ENGR 498
Project Sponsor: Praxair Services, Inc.
Award Sponsor: Advanced Ceramics Research
Team Members: Ryan Lovrien, Edward Billings, Jerome Chipman

• Lockheed Martin Best Interdisciplinary Award ($500)
Development of an Anthropomorphic Radiographic Respiratory Phantom

The team developed a model that simulated the properties of bone, soft tissue, and lung tissue to be used for evaluating algorithms that position equipment during radiation therapy.

Class: ENGR 498
Project Sponsor: UA Radiation Oncology
Award Sponsor: Lockheed Martin
Team Members: Ashley Mcphee, Nuna Yoon, Jacob Egan, Rebekah Quick, Stephanie Sara, Sierra Hoff

• Veeco Best Optics Design Award ($500)
Passively Modulating Retroreflectors for Navigation and Target Differentiation

This team built and tested a prototype remote communication system that uses a laser beam to scan a remote unit and reflect back data from that unit.

Class: ENGR 498
Project Sponsor: McGuire Entrepreneurship Program and the UA College of Engineering
Award Sponsor: Veeco
Team Members: Nicholas Trail, Erik Arend, Rigel Woida, Kelleher Guerin, Adam Little

• Western Design Center, Inc., Best Systems and Industrial Design Award ($500)
Demand Driven Schedules

This team developed an application that optimizes workforce scheduling. One of the main goals was to reduce the cost associated with creating the schedule itself. The team ran a customized algorithm that emphasized the importance of several key, customer-based criteria.

Class: SIE 442
Project Sponsor: Greg Flynn
Award Sponsor: Western Design Center
Team Members: Brad Gonnerman, Jeff Branscum, Jan Karstad, Ken Dang

• Best Aerospace Design Award ($500)
Ground Effect Drag Reduction by Flow Control

This project focused on studying the aerodynamic drag on Fireball Racing's Mini Cooper Drag Race Car and on developing modifications to reduce drag and stabilize the car at high speeds.

Class: AME 422
Project Sponsor: Fireball Tim Racing
Award Sponsor: Honeywell and AME
Team Members: Kuang C. Liu, Cole Saucier, James Brown, Shane Donovan

• Best Application of Engineering Analysis to Aerospace Design Award ($500)
AIAA Design, Build, Fly

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) sponsors an annual competition known as "Design, Build, Fly." University teams build remote-control model planes to fly missions specified by AIAA.

Class: AME 422
Project Sponsor: AIAA Student Chapter
Award Sponsor: AME Research Faculty
Team Members: Matthew Stohr, Katelun May, Ian Phillips, Travis Berka, James Rahn

• Most Creative Aerospace Design Award ($1,000)
Raytheon Small Tube Launched UAS

This project focused on a tube-launched maritime reconnaissance Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) that can stay aloft for 90 minutes and cover 60 nautical miles.

Class: AME 422
Project Sponsor: Raytheon
Award Sponsor: Lockheed Martin
Team Members: Chandra Bartel, Anthony Culwell, Zachary Fergason, Garrett Mitchell

• Best Mechanical Engineering Design Award ($500)
Cabin Pressure Thrust Recovery Valve Linkage

This group redesigned a valve linkage to increase the valve's control resolution, reduce the amount of torque required to operate the valve, and reduce the number of links between the actuator and the valve doors.

Class: AME 412
Project Sponsor: Honeywell — Tucson
Award Sponsor: Sargent Controls
Team Members: Tyler Harvey, Jesse Bertin, Kevin Marshall, Drew Watson

• Best Mechanical Engineering Fabricated Prototype Award ($1,000)
Solar Tower Power Plant

This team developed a system to test and analyze data that can be used to optimize the design and construction of full-sized solar-tower power plants.

Class: AME 412
Project Sponsor: AME Professor Hermann Fasel
Award Sponsor: Raytheon
Team Members: Ian Behncke, Brett Carter, Matthew Stroud, Rolando Garcia, Daniel Huck

• Most Creative Mechanical Engineering Design Award ($500)
Prototype Racing Differential for Formula SAE Racecar

The team designed an adjustable, closed-loop control system for a Formula SAE racecar differential. The differential was designed to prevent adverse dynamic handling characteristics and to give the driver more stability control.

Class: AME 412
Project Sponsor: UA Formula SAE
Award Sponsor: Competitive Engineering
Team Members: Vincent Glowacka, Jonathan Matthias, Cassey Wilson, Kenan Arik, Kyle Montgomery

• Texas Instruments Best Overall ECE Design Award ($500)
Vehicle Position Sensing System

This project involved designing, building and testing a system that detects which lane an automobile is in as it passes automated emissions testing equipment.

Class: ECE 498
Project Sponsor: Environmental Systems Products
Award Sponsor: Texas Instruments
Team Members: Clifford Blanton, Amir Kaufman, Michael Curry, Timothy Cruz, Jordan Buchanan

• Most Creative ECE Design Award ($250)
IEEE Micromouse

The micromouse was built for an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) competition. The self-powered, autonomous robotic mouse is designed to find the center of a maze in the shortest possible time.

Class: ECE 498
Project Sponsor: UA ECE and IEEE
Award Sponsor: UA ECE
Team Members: Shannon Hoblitzell, Jonathan Strootman, Jason Katterhenry, Gerardo Torres, Joseph Fico, Aaron Stout

• ECE Best Presentation Award ($250)
Pediatric Electronic Medical Records

This team created additional features for PedOne, a web-based application created by Seventh Rank Management, L.L.C. These features include internet-based scheduling for patients, an in-office patient tracker, electronic representations of patient data and graphs, and other features.

Class: ECE 498
Project Sponsor: Seventh Rank Management, L.L.C.
Award Sponsor: UA ECE
Team Members: Elyse Stein, Eric Davis, Ashraf Barakat, Daniel Devine, Drew Hopkins, Everett Benally

 

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