Seniors Set to Showcase Engineering and Computing Capstone Projects

Nearly 40 capstone projects from Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering senior student teams in electrical, mechanical, industrial and systems engineering, computer science as well as interdisciplinary and entrepreneurial projects will all be on display on Friday, May 12 in Loma Hall's first floor space.

The annual Engineering and Computing Showcase, which is free and open to the public to attend, takes place from 2:30 to 5 p.m. It's here where senior students will discuss, demonstrate and answer questions about their respective senior design projects they've been working on throughout the academic year. 

There will be approximately 10 mechanical engineering projects on display, nine computer science projects, five industrial and systems engineering projects and four electrical engineering projects. Eight projects involve an interdisciplinary teaming of students from different disciplines within the school and there are three projects that fall under the entrepreneurship category. 

Two of the entrepreneurial ideas have recently enjoyed some visible success as part of USD's two spring entrepreneurship competitions, the Venture Vetting (V2) Pitch Competition on May 4 and the Social Innovation Challenge on May 5. 

Trash Tracker, a mechanical engineering project, is designed to develop a waste tracking system that weighs trash, recycling and green waste on a per-household basis to reduce garbage generation and increase recycling. The students involved in this project are Jordan Schultz, David Morris, Jorge Pumachugua and Matthew McLean. Last week, Schultz successfully pitched the Trash Tracker at both the V2 and SIC events, earning a total of $16,000 — $8,000 at each event — to put toward the project idea's further development. 

Another project involved in V2 and the SIC events is CARE Technologies' Patient Security Node. The interdisciplinary electrical and mechanical engineering project is designed to create a device that will aggregate data from multiple medical devices and secure the transfer of information across information systems. The USD student project team consists of Colby Bishop, Andrew Booth, Eric Greene, Anthony Shao and Jacques Yeager. The team was a V2 semifinalist and was able to participate in the pre-event Venture Fair. For the SIC, CARE Technologies was one of 17 finalists and earned $2,000. 

A third entrepreneurial project, Cherry Tree Cover, is a mechanical engineering concept that developed a low-cost physical cover for cherry trees that displaces rainwater, which can devastate annual crops. The cover will be viable for farms of all sizes. The student team is comprised of Andrew Billigmeier, Connor Schofield, Jake Hallgrimson, Nick Watson and Ryan St. Onge. 

These are just a few of the many exciting projects being developed by USD engineering and computer science students. Be sure to stop by to see all of the capstone projects, some of whom are ideas that students developed specifically at the request of companies in the industry. 

Two in-house projects to view are the Baja off-road vehicle, which was an interdisciplinary project for 14 students; and SoulrCart, a next-level sustainability enhancement project that students took on to support mid-year USD business graduate Tyler Norris' entrepreneurial business idea of a more sustainable and mobile food cart. 

A complete list of all Spring 2017 senior design engineering and computing projects.