As doctors get better at treating diseases, engineers continue to discover new solutions to medical issues that were previously thought to be impossible to solve. College of Engineering seniors were no different at this year’s Capstone Design Expo, with many of the teams concentrating their efforts on preventing, diagnosing, and treating diseases and health concerns.

Teams from nearly every school found ways to improve the well-being of people all over the world. Students from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering created a device that detects instances of opioid overdose. A team from the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering designed and constructed a prototype that scans the skin of a patient’s arm to diagnose lymphedema. Interdisciplinary groups did everything from creating a system that provides a modern approach to quitting nicotine, to heating orthopedic implants.
 
At the Capstone Design Expo, 153 teams of graduating students got the chance to display prototypes of their ideas, which are representative of their years of engineering and design learning done while at Georgia Tech. They were judged by more than 150 experts and professionals from around the world, who scored each project and named a winner in each category.
 
This year’s winner for best overall project was Supleurative, a biomedical engineering team that created a device that makes lung draining procedures possible and efficient in hospitals.
 
“I’m just blown away in terms of the recognition we’re getting for this,” said James Wroe, a member of Supleurative. “It’s really important to me that we’re doing work that’s translatable into the real world. I think that’s a big factor in why we won, is that it’s been recognized how useful this is going to be for people in the next year.”
 
The team’s members hope to test their product in a small clinical trial in Ethiopia this summer.
 
The award for best mechanical engineering project was shared between two teams- Send It! and W(hole) lotta trouble. 

Send It! produced a system for controlling the air spring characteristics in high performance mountain bike suspension forks. It enables the rider to adjust the spring rate of the fork while riding in order to provide appropriate support and traction across differing terrains. They were not sponsored and hope to make the project commercially viable. 
 
W(hole) lotta trouble, sponsored by Ethicon, developed a tool for analyzing the shape and dimension of laser drilled holes in suture needles for quality control purposes.

Overall winner: Supleurative

An efficient, reusable, and low-cost lung drain device that is fit for use in developing nations and can replace the current gravity drainage used at Ethiopian hospitals.

James Wroe, Atlanta, Georgia

Yige Huang, China
Hannah Choi, Atlanta, Georgia
Tara Ramachandran, Scarsdale, New York
 

Aerospace Engineering: The Squirrel Works

An unmanned long-range strike aerial vehicle to serve as a replacement for the F-111, F-117, and as a supplement to the B-2. Characteristics of the aircraft include low-observability, ability to access Anti-Access Area Denial airspace, radical maneuver capabilities, as well as being lighter, smaller, and less expensive than current piloted aircraft.

Emily Paxton, Bangkok, Thailand

Jared Mehnert, Lebanon, Ohio

Wesley Gillman, Rogers, Arkansas

Kyle Neville, Lawrenceville, Georgia

Fahraan Badruddin, Duluth, Georgia

Erica Hulette, Acworth, Georgia

Biomedical Engineering: aMAYOnnaising

A device that aids in reconnecting the bladder to the urethra after a prostatectomy.

Nicholas Quan, Richmond Hill, Georgia

Bailey Klee, Alpharetta, Georgia

Madeline Smerchansky, Arlington, Virginia

Rachel Mann, Homer Glen, Illinois

Civil and Environmental Engineering: BAMM Engineering

A project to widen a section of I-20 in Carroll County was temporarily shut down due to the negative safety impacts of the construction staging and traffic re-routing methods.

Michael Nieman, Woodstock, Georgia

Andrew White, Decatur, Georgia

Matthew Gruba, Augusta, Georgia

Bailey Little, Flowery Branch, Georgia

Electrical and Computer Engineering: PulseScan

An electrocardiogram (ECG) wearable that will track a user’s ECG signals and monitor them from one’s phone or laptop, warning of short-term and long-term heart risk while also providing information on physical fitness.

Joseph Lennon, Fayetteville, Georgia

Derin Ozturk, California

Justin Cheung, Duluth, Georgia

Sehej Ahluwalia, Plano, Texas

Victor Barr, Berkeley Lake, Georgia

Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering: Chopa

Design a collection of toys that use insights about compensating behaviors of accessibility-limited children to create a more comprehensive, well-rounded experience for all children.

Jae Hyuk Kim, Industrial Design, Seoul, Korea

Max Cohen, Industrial Design, Miami, Florida

Elliot Manassa , Mechanical Engineering, Riverwoods, Illinois

Matias Girardi, Mechanical Engineering, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Kristin Andreassen, Industrial Design, Atlanta

Industrial and Systems Engineering: Cox Automotive

Our team is evaluating Cox Automotive's current process and providing recommendations on controllable decisions, such as vehicle relocating, reconditioning, and holding to reduce loss per vehicle.

Margaret Jennings, Kennesaw, Georgia

Will Olsson, Åhus, Sweden

Meghan Rathie, Johns Creek, Georgia

Siddhartha Meka, Snellville, Georgia

Alan Johnson, Marietta, Georgia

Ashley Paek, Johns Creek, Georgia

Kelly Kronenberger, Suwanee, Georgia

Sarah Stein, Carmel, Indiana

Mechanical Engineering (tie): W(hole) lotta trouble

Analyzing the shape and dimension of laser drilled holes in suture needles for quality control.

Mónica López, Dorado, Puerto Rico

Justin Tai, San Jose, California

Yujung Ryu, Suwanee, Georgia

Adam Garlow, Decatur, Georgia

Zhigen Zhao, Hangzhou, China

Mechanical Engineering (tie): Send It!

TEAR is a system that controls the air spring characteristics in high performance mountain bike suspension forks.

Nicholas Henderson, Flowery Branch, Georgia

Admir Berisha, Bronx, New York

Matei Dan, Atlanta, Georgia

Hunter Brown, Bullard, Texas

Interdisciplinary: PPEeps

This project aims to increase workplace safety by decreasing the number of failures in the PPE required in Central Sterile Processing Units.

Jordan Lo Coco, Mechanical Engineering, Pasadena

Jim Peterson, Mechanical Engineering, Atlanta, Georgia

Maylyn Parsons, Biomedical Engineering, Greenville, South Carolina

Kendra Simpson, Biomedical Engineering, Cumming, Georgia

For more photos from Capstone, visit our Flickr gallery.