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Previous ASME Award Winner

Recent Departmental Runner Up Awards

Capstone Design Projects

Hair Snag Project

2020-2021 - Spring

Team: 28

Team Members

Kylie Rankle
Gemma Calandra
Grant Barclay
Katie Freitag
Mathieu Giroud

Contact Team
Researchers studying animals in the wild often use “hair snags”, devices placed in a habitat to collect hair samples when animals interact with them, to collect and study animal DNA. More often than not, current hair snag designs capture hair from more than one individual animal, which makes it harder for researchers to inspect the DNA samples. To correct this issue, we have created a prototype for a single-sampling hair snag that successfully collects and isolates a sample from a single animal.
Front and Side view of hair snagging device after being triggered

DIII-D DiMES Port Rod Ablation System

2020-2021 - Spring

Team: 17

Team Members

Michael Hanson
Jason Escalera
Hadith Taheri
Daniel Zubovic
Caitlin Villareal

Contact Team
We present the design of ATJ graphite rods developed for ablation experiments under high heat flux (up to 50 MW/m2) in the lower divertor of the DIII-D tokamak.
Image of the completed rod ablation system

UCSD MED - Autoinjector for Ultrasound Guided Nerve Blocks

2020-2021 - Spring

Team: 31

Team Members

Kin (Walter) Chao
Michel Jacob Graff
Tyler Knapp
Trinity Pike
Wiley Weber

Contact Team
This project focused on the development of a medical device to streamline and improve ultrasound guided nerve blocks. These procedures currently require two medical personnel, an anesthesiologist and an assistant. Ideally, this procedure would be performed by the anesthesiologist alone as the forces felt throughout the injection provide valuable sensory information about the state of the operation. Thus revealing the need for an Auto-Injector device enabling this desired one-person operation.
Final Autoinjector Physical Prototype

Endoscope Torque Applicator

2020-2021 - Spring

Team: 35

Team Members

Jinho Hong
Canwin Tso
Taewook Kim
Isaac Gonzalez

Contact Team
The objective is to design, build, test, and document a device that can reduce the stress on a doctor’s body when performing an endoscopy by applying mechanical advantage while exerting the necessary forces to perform a colonoscopy. The device must be a cheap, disposable tool or a durable, easy to clean tool that can replace the current hand and towel combination. Finally, the device must not alter the overall procedure as that will impose a training cost on the hospital.
CAD Model of Final Product

Pheromone Releaser

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 8

Team Members

Tyler Bettendorf
Ainsley Chiang
Kazu Otani
Lowell Tejada

Spine Tester

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 1

Team Members

Chris Hohn
Nick Statom
Ed Lachman
Omar Amin

Surface Force Macroscope

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 2

Team Members

Jeremy Sorensen
Adam Rusch
Raymond Hsu

Cultivator Implement

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 3

Team Members

Anthony Kralj
Zaid Karim
Stephen Perez
Jack Raley

Harddisk Drop Tester

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 5

Team Members

Khanh Le
Ken Chen
Oscar Guerrero
Amorsolo Lacanilao

Ink Cartridge Test-Bed

2004-2005 - Winter

Team: 8

Team Members

Kevin Loewke
John McCague
Linda Hau
Kuroudo Iwanaga

SUV Rack System

2004-2005 - Winter

Team: 7

Team Members

Chad Fondiller
Ukoh Obot
Tyler Mayer
Eric Lin

LADAR Isolation Mount

2004-2005 - Winter

Team: 6

Team Members

Chris Choi
Kyung Park
Steve Geist
Rick Sozzi
Annie Monkowski

RoboPogo the Hopping Robot

2004-2005 - Winter

Team: 5

Team Members

John Bell
Jenny Dyck
Isad Cimanes
Ying Lang Lao
Andrew Marshall

Rotational IR Sensor Array

2004-2005 - Winter

Team: 4

Team Members

Michelle Darley
Sam Hutsell
Ben Penney
Brent Rust
Thomas Sarmiento

Thermoelectric Power Supply

2004-2005 - Winter

Team: 3

Team Members

Jeff Aller
Sarah Au
Katie Bottum
Rick Harrison
Alex Zimmerman

Muscle Fiber Fixture

2004-2005 - Winter

Team: 2

Team Members

Mashia Ghods
Elaine Karaelias
Nelson Bravo
Dustin Wong

Thermal Interface Fixture

2004-2005 - Winter

Team: 1

Team Members

David Allen
Rosalyn Esteves
Lucas Fornace
Jon Hart
Raquel Timmer-Beck

Toy Adapter

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 14

Team Members

Edsel Villar
Hung Ma
John Haesle
Kenan Juntsal

Non-contact Temperature Control

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 12

Team Members

Jason Poulos
Wendy Chen
Nicholas Matteson
Kyaw Win

Film Cutting Automation

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 4

Team Members

Daniel Arnold
Jonathan Costabile
Matthew Oliphant
Brian Uiga

Scanner Analyzer

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 6

Team Members

Linda Galaviz
Ka Lok Lui
Ronald Roath
Nicholas Tawa

Automated Washing System

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 7

Team Members

Arash Khalifeh
Dan Miller
Darmawan Setiawan
Parminder Ubhi

Glass Disc Automation

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 10

Team Members

Ernesto Garcia
Vanty Do
Jasmine Cheong
Austin Reid

Foot Joystick Mouse

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 13

Team Members

Andy Barbour
Eric Kim
Dominic Ghianni

Optical Fuel-Air-Ratio Sensor

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 9

Team Members

Carlo Scarinci
Andrew Gray
Grego Ardley
Geoff Hoffmann

2 Stage Refrigeration

2004-2005 - Spring

Team: 11

Team Members

Jozefik Zoltan
Roy Z. Li
Tom Y. Lee
Jayson Q. Shi

Dolphin Wave Drag Measurement

2005-2006 - Spring

Team: 7

Team Members

Todd Groth
June Monzon
Ben Reed
Matt Whigham

Next Generation Training Wheels

2005-2006 - Spring

Team: 4

Team Members

Erick Espinosa
Abdiel Picazo Jr.
Richard Hung
Rosemary Chang

Surfboard Fin Characterization

2005-2006 - Spring

Team: 10

Team Members

Brad Elliott
Derek Inouye
Simon Luck
Brandon Mok,
Matthew Trettin

Fixture Set for User-Friendly Optical Active Alignment

2005-2006 - Spring

Team: 11

Team Members

Meghdi Babakhanlou
Sona Sarian
Tsu-Li Chen
Michael Kenji Eguchi