By: Eli Freund, Editorial Communications Manager, UConn School of Engineering
Two hundred and twenty-eight groups, consisting of nearly 800 seniors, stood proudly by projects ranging from as small as a cyborg insect, to as large as an all-electric car inside of Gampel Pavilion. The capstone projects, which were the culmination of a year’s-worth of work, are known as Senior Design, and are presented annually at Senior Design Demonstration Day.
Each of the projects presented at the Demonstration Day, sponsored by more than 100 organizations, provide students with extensive hands-on experience, and an opportunity to work on real-world problems presented by sponsoring organizations. Sponsors invest time and resources, and work in-depth with their individual groups and consulting faculty members to create innovative solutions that are often integrated back into their organization.
The sponsoring organizations, which span the public and private sectors, include companies like Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, General Dynamics Electric Boat, Comcast ,and governmental organizations like the Town of Mansfield, the Town of Stafford Springs, the Connecticut Department of Transportation and the City of Bridgeport.
During the day, students present to faculty, staff, industry sponsors, and guests, with a team of judges on hand to determine the winners from every department. Below are the 2018 awardees from each department (faculty advisor in parentheses):
Biomedical Engineering
First Place
Team 20, “Cerebral Palsy Hand Rehabilitation Device”
Members: Morgan DaSilva, Brittany Morgan, Katie Bradley, Brianna Perry (Dr. Krystyna Gielo-Perczak)
Second Place
Team 11, “Incubation Unit for Neural Cell Electro-Mechanical Stimulation and Growth”
Members: Norah Cowley, Bianca Wyman, Alexander Almeida, Jenna Taormina (Dr. Kazunori Hoshino)
Third Place
Team 6, “Applications of Machine Learning to Analysis of Neurological Data”
Members: Keeyan Ghoreshi, Eric Van Der Karr (Dr. Bin Feng)
Honorable Mention
Team 23, “Wearable technology to noninvasively measure cognitive and physiological fatigue”
Members: Alyssa Tacchi, Shasha Graves, and Charmi Patel (Dr. Insoo Kim)
Honorable Mention
Team 19, “Blood Alcohol Content Monitoring Device and Companion Application”
Members: Ryan Cunniff, Amisha Dave, Sarah Knapp, Divya Bana, and Matthew LeClair (Dr. Dr. Krystyna Gielo-Perczak)
Honorable Mention
Team 8, “An Inexpensive Device to Alleviate Back Pain Due to Poor Posture”
Members: Pedro Ramirez, Alemayehu Asres, Magdalena Wegrzyniak, Cristina Rascoll (Dr. Patrick Kumavor)
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
First Place
Team 18, “Reducing Pt loading in PEM electrolysis stacks via nano-coating processes”
Members: Alex Keane, William Tait, Kyle Terracciano, Tom D’Auria (Dr. Luyi Sun)
Second Place
Team 7, “Modeling the Filling Process for Structured Body Wash to Predict Process Sensitivity”
Members: Emma Willett, Bailey Gannett, Dana Parmalee, and Alicia Gorski (Dr. Anson Ma)
Third Place
Team 19, “In-Situ Resource Utilization for a Self-Sustaining Martian Colony”
Members: Amy McKinstry, Carmi Mandelkern, Brielle Cash, Julia Kennedy (Dr. Dan Burkey)
Civil and Environmental Engineering
First Place
Team 11 (Civil), “St. Basil Church Parking Garage: Foundation and Structural Design”
Members: Tyler Brett, David Masse, Ryan Kennedy, David Linder, Front: Jeffrey McLamb, Erin Albrecht, Dominic Godi, David Verdis (Dr. John Ivan and Dr. Amvrossios Bagtzoglou)
and
Team 12 (Civil), “St. Basil Church Parking Garage: Site Design and Transportation Planning”
Members: Tyler Brett, David Masse, Ryan Kennedy, David Linder, Front: Jeffrey McLamb, Erin Albrecht, Dominic Godi, David Verdis (Dr. John Ivan and Dr. Amvrossios Bagtzoglou)
Team 1 (Environmental), “Rectory School Wastewater Renovation”
Members: Kyle Cappotto, Joshua Crittenden, Jonathan Detoudom, Danny Ross, and Sarah Rudnick (Dr. Alexander Agrios)
Second Place
Team 13 (Civil), “Mansfield Public Library: Stormwater Management”
Members: Edward Gill, Steven Matyi, Flannery Mackin, Hayden Clarkin (Dr. Marina Astitha & Dr. Alexander G. Agrios)
Team 5 (Environmental), “Design of Anaerobic Digester to Capture Methane & Power Microgrid at the Windham WPCF”
Members: Sara Nelson, Kim Quach, Emma Hughes (Dr. Baikun Li)
Third Place
Team 16 (Civil), “Structural Design of a Solar Carport”
Members: Atta Detome Henoun, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Chris Pawlowski, and Dillon Pepin (Dr. Shinae Jang)
Team 3 (Environmental), “Town of Franklin Public Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment Design”
Members: Melanie McFadden, Zihan Huang, Warren Maskell IV, Elizabeth Lagoy, Nicholas Masse (Dr. Jonathan Mellor)
Computer Science and Engineering
First Place
Team 7, “Inferencing Based on Machine Stoppages”
Members: Peter Polis, Michael Feldman, Daniel Camilliere, Michael Pappas, Patrick Guyer and Michael Presch (Dr. Swapna Gokhale)
Second Place
Team 18, A Visual Euclid’s Elements
Members: Soumya Kundu, Sailesh Simhadri, Ian Dechene, Drew Monroe and Joe Sweeney (Dr. Donald Sheehy)
Third Place
Team 31, Hartford Steam Boiler Nameplate Recognition System
Members: Qiansheng Hu, Chris Peterson, Chengchen Zhang, Eddie Huang, Hunter Hollant and Michael Gentile (Dr. Dong-Guk Shin)
and
Team 16, “Smart Hotels”
Members: Arun George, Brian Matuszak, Rafal Bezubik, Chris Skoczylas, Kevin Schumitz and Rich Infante (Dr. Reda Ammar and Dr. Sanguthevar Rajasekaran)
Electrical and Computer Engineering
First Place
Team 1826, “Design of a Cloud-based Battery Management System”
Members: Laurne Williams, William Brown, Donald O’Boyle (Dr. Sung-Yeul Park)
Second Place
Team 1819, “Autonomous Weight Detection System”
Members: Daniel Fernandes, Amy Robinson, Marilyn Duong (Dr. Mousumi Roy, Dr. Necmi Biyikli, Dr. Xu Chen)
Third Place
Team 1814, “Glucose Monitoring Smartwatch”
Members: Richard Mullen, Alexander Valdes, Keelin Becker-Wheeler (Dr. John Chandy)
Management and Engineering for Manufacturing
First Place
Team 9, “Integrated Workbench Implementation in Sub-Assembly”
Members: Christopher Haack, Richard Sangster, Cassidy Cooley (Dr. Mousumi Roy)
Second Place
Team 13, “Cell Redesign for Bolt Rework Process”
Members: Jennifer Piekos, Daniel Gustafson, Dr. Mousumi Roy Not Shown: Patrick Purdy, Yani Lagoutis (Dr. Mousumi Roy and Dr. ZhanZhan Jia)
Third Place
Team 15, “Jonal Laboratories Value Stream Mapping Senior Design Project”
Members: Bradley D’Alelio, Hailey Ross, Rod Gonzalez (Dr. Diane Van Scoter)
and
Team 16, “Army Ant Emulation”
Members: Nicholas Leong, Owen Rockwell, Dennis Scheglov, Richard Goldman (Dr. Mousumi Roy and Dr. Chengyu Cao)
Material Science and Engineering
First Place
Team 11, “Investigation of Additive Manufacturing Design, Processes, and Variables to Enhance a Ti-6Al-4V Actuator Bracket
Members: Haley Hubbell and Alexa Wilcox (Dr. Rainer Hebert, Dr. John Graham, Dr. Robert Morlath)
Second Place
Team 10, “Design of a Method for Better Predicting CMAS Infiltration into Thermal Barrier Coatings”
Members: Greg Ladestro, Ryan Dibiase, Michael Gingrave (Dr. George Rossetti, Dr. Elisa Zaleski)
Third Place
Team 8, “Optimized Post Processing Treatment of Additive Manufactured AlSi10Mg”
Members: Carl Rizzo and Carissa Dibattista (Dr. Seok-Woo Lee and Tom Derko (Sikorsky))
Mechanical Engineering
First Place
Team 55, “Design, Development, and Fabrication of a Right-Sized Compact Press Rolling Machine”
Members: Brandon Steeves, Mateusz Sroka, Lucas Marcouiller (Dr. Horea Ilies)
Second Place
Team 35, “Thermal Gradient Rig Sample Holder Redesign”
Members: Edward Ostrowski, Kinga Wrobel (Dr. Ryan Cooper)
and
Team 52, “Racing Shell Stiffness Measurement Method and Apparatus”
Members: Tegh Terrell, Dillon Johnson, Anthony Pizzola (Dr. Tom Mealy)
Third Place
Team 18B, “Disabled Submarine Compartment Decompression”
Members: Spencer Cohen, Michael Ferrara, Marc Cacioppo (Dr. David Giblin)
Professor’s Award
Team 34, “Rotating Disk Heat Transfer Coefficients”
Members: Maria Rozman, Samuel Manzolillo, Hubert Bis (Dr. Xinyu Zhao)
For more information on the Senior Design Program, please visit our website: https://seniordesign.engr.uconn.edu.
