Visionary Projects Highlight Engineering School Expo

Visionary Projects Highlight Engineering School Expo

Expo

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of preventable blindness in the developing world where the condition often leads to unemployment and a difficult life.

But at Friday’s Fall Engineering Expo for the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering, students demonstrated how they plan to help find a solution. Through Clarity Design Inc., one of the school’s corporate sponsors, electrical and mechanical engineering students are developing both contact and non-contact tonometers that will help the Himalayan Cataract Project screen for the condition in Nepal.

“My teammates and I always get excited when we think about how our work is going towards something that will save lives,” said Nicole Nino, who is working on the handheld non-contact tonometer to measure pressure in the eye. “What makes our approach different from the tonometer on the market, is that ours will cost substantially less at about $500. Most tonometers costs range from $2,000 to $7,000.”

Jenna Owens is working on the team for the contact tonometer that will be powered by a rechargeable battery with enough capacity to last for 200 measurements. “Our tonometer is unique because it will be affordable, portable, and rugged enough to be used in the developing world," she said. 

At the event, students presented posters for this year’s senior design capstone projects that will be complete for the Spring Expo in May. Following the completion earlier this year of $4.5 million in new facilities that includes the Cymer Ideation Space and Donald’s Garage, named in honor of Donald P. Shiley, inventor of a revolutionary heart valve, students are racing ahead on a variety of new projects.

For the first time in the school’s history, students are planning to compete in the Baja SAE, an international collegiate design competition sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers where students are tasked to design and build an off-road vehicle that will survive the severe punishment of rough terrain.

“A number of students approached us last summer with very strong interest to build a Baja SAE car,” explained David Malicky, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering. “With the newly renovated first floor, we are now able to support a car project. It’s a terrific learning opportunity (for the students) who are just finishing the design and about to start construction.” The contest requires the completion of a single-seat, all-terrain sporting vehicle that can cost no more than $10,000. The project is supported by Walker Digital Table Systems, Aruze Gaming, SilverFern Investments, and Camouflage Establishment.

With another sponsor, Vildosola Racing, mechanical engineering students will be creating an accurate 3D CAD model of Vildosola’s current Trophy Truck along with proposed modifications to make its next racing vehicle lighter and faster. The project involves reverse engineering the truck chassis into an accurate 3D model using stereo-photogrammetry, a process somewhat similar to that used in “Avatar” and other movies to turn real objects into 3D, Malicky said.

The project involves going to Vildosola’s garage in Miramar and has provided lots of valuable hands-on experience, said Luis Cuadrado Granda, an exchange student from Spain. "The most fun has been scanning the car, actually being in the garage and speaking (to the team members),” he said.

During the semester, first-year USD engineering and middle school students from Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School in City Heights also worked together on a robotics project to teach the USD students basic engineering principles and encourage the Sacred Heart students to consider careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). CBS 8 covered their demonstration at the Expo. 

-- Liz Harman

Students in the Contact Tonometer Project are from left, Madeline Vorenkamp, Jenna Owens, Danford Jooste and Chris Brown

Students in the Vildosola Chassis Modeling Project include from left, Kiefer Grindle, Francisco Suarez and Luis Cuadrado Granda