Fall Design Review and the Blustery Day

BME projectDec. 9, 2016 - Strong winds drove this year’s Fall Design Review inside the Calit2 Building where more than 670 engineering students took over three of the five floors, including the auditorium.

The Fall Design Review is the first chance for engineering students to present their senior design project goals to a wider audience. Engineering faculty, staff and students, as well as a few alumni and industry representatives turned out to browse the poster displays.

One hundred and seventeen teams displayed their posters, outlining the challenge they proposed to solve with their engineering ingenuity. Projects included a portable bed for the homeless, a rapid burn-wound assessment tool, an advanced combustion fire tracker, a camera/sensor to assist walking while texting, HyperXite’s pod design and many more.

First-time industry reviewer and engineering alumnus Bryan Martin ‘87, ‘93, ‘96, a systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was impressed with the projects. “Really interesting stuff, some good challenges here,” he said.

Samueli School Dean Gregory Washington thought the event went well, especially given the challenging weather, and was particularly pleased to see the quadcopter competition draw a full house in the auditorium. “It’s phenomenal to see the progress of this program and the level of expertise of our students,” he said.

Now in its fifth year, the Samueli School’s Introduction to Engineering class is an experiential learning course that gives students a hands-on engineering experience. Enrollment in the course continues to grow. This year 365 freshman participated, with 63 teams designing, building and testing radio-controlled (RC) quadcopters.

The top 10 teams competed in the final fly-off. Team Squad X (Ehsan Alipourjeddi, Nicolas Chan, Evan Ranario, Keiser Ruiz, Kevin Tran, Zeyuan Ye) emerged as the winner, completing the preliminary course in 11 seconds and the final course in 16.8 seconds.

- Lori Brandt