Previous ASME Award Winner
Recent Departmental Runner Up Awards
Capstone Design Projects
Animal Care Processing Project (ACCP)
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 42
The Animal Care Processing Project (ACCP) is sponsored by Dr. Keith Jenné, who has served as the Executive Director of the UC San Diego Animal Care Program and Campus Veterinarian since April 2023. The primary objective of this project is to automate the dumping procedure during the pre-sanitization process of animal care cages within the Centralized Research Service Facility at UC San Diego, using a grab-dump-load integrated automation machine to reduce health hazards for facility workers.
Flow Enabled Energy Generation Device
2024-2025 - Winter
Team: 4
Team Members
Ashley Campbell
Maime Grace Barnard
Gabrielle Scott
Markus Gokan
Justin Kwak
The flow of ions in salt water over a charged surface results in formation of an electrical double layer (EDL). Over long channel lengths, this results in a measurable electric potential difference. The objective for this project is to use this principle to develop a solid state transducer to generate electrical energy from ocean wave and flow dynamics.
Random Positioning Machine 2.0
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 31
The Random Positioning Machine (RPM) 2.0 is a microgravity simulation. It is a ground analog for studying manufacturing and other applications in space. Specifically, it was designed to study the process of sintering in space. To do this, a furnace was mounted to the center of the machine. The RPM 2.0 can also be used to test any other long term processes that fit inside its generous 100 pound and 30 cubic inch loading capacity.
Cohu Temperature Gradient Tester
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 36
Cohu Inc., one of the nation's leading manufacturers of post-processing machines, plays a critical role in the semiconductor testing process. This project created a hands-free surface temperature gradient measurement tool using MLX90614-BCI sensors.
Automated Tracheal Cuff Pump
2024-2025 - Winter
Team: 6
Procedures such as tracheostomies make use of tracheal tubes to apply oscillatory pressure onto stents. These tubes require long hours of manual syringe pumping which makes certain procedures difficult. The product consists of an automated pump system with advanced ASDR controls and a website UI to review and download system behavioral data.
Jacobs Hall Clock Revival
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 33
Team Members
Jonathan Dela Cruz
Irving Ding
Fatima Fazli
Fernando Gochicoa
Lacey Potter
We have proudly partnered with the student organization, Triton Restoration Initiative (TRI), Dr. Delson, and the UCSD MAE Department to repair and enhance the Jacobs Hall Clock. This includes the primary task of restoring complete and accurate functionality of the gearbox, as well as secondary tasks of improving aesthetics, creating a maintenance plan, proposing the enclosure's refurbishment, and proposing a self-correction system.
Improved Punch Biopsy Tool
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 35
A punch biopsy is a common procedure where providers excise a small column of tissue to be submitted for examination and analysis. However, current punch biopsy procedure requires three tools and often an additional assistant. This slows the workflow, increases patient discomfort and risk of suboptimal specimen sampling. This project aims to improve the punch biopsy tool by designing an all-in-one device that enables a single user to perform the procedure seamlessly.
KangaMove Parental Skin-to-skin Contact Support
2024-2025 - Winter
Team: 7
The KangaMove is designed to support parents during skin-to-skin contact by providing stability for equipment and accessories while holding their child. The posable arm integrates seamlessly with vital NICU equipment, including Jet Ventilator auxiliary components, ventilator tubes, and IV lines. By securing these essential connections, the KangaMove alleviates concerns about tube displacement, allowing parents to focus on bonding with their infant.
Autogyro UAV
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 22
The project was aimed at developing a surveillance-capable autogyro UAV by modifying a hobbyist platform to support live video streaming, manual RC control, and basic autonomous compatibility using a flight controller, GPS, and telemetry system—laying the groundwork for future fully autonomous missions and advanced monitoring features like shark detection.
ATA Shock Test Table Firing Mechanism
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 1
Team Members
Manu Mittal
Nina Abraham
Marco Rincon Villanueva
Anne Marlow
Reggie Estrella
ATA Engineering aimed to develop a shock test table to validate shock analysis. The goal was to build a pneumatic firing mechanism that consistently produces accurate shock events. It launches a 1–3 kg mass at 6–13 m/s using compressed air from a tank released by a solenoid valve. A second valve vents the barrel shortly after to prevent secondary impacts. The system reliably drives the projectile into the table at the target velocity.
Unmanned Aerial Systems Hybrid Powertrain Testbed
2024-2025 - Winter
Team: 3
Team Members
Daniel Cruz-Espada
Jason Holtkamp
Joud Bukhari
Kenneth Su
Shivharsh Kand
Ziad Gari
A testbed designed to evaluate the thermal behavior of PCB stators and rotors for hybrid drone powertrains. Built for modularity, it allows controlled testing under various operating conditions, providing critical insights into heat dissipation and airflow dynamics. Its adaptable framework supports iterative testing of different rotor designs and stator configurations, enabling the refinement of cooling strategies for improved efficiency.
Portable TEC-Based Liquid Cooling Garment
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 30
Team Members
Aaron Lo
Morgan Laney
Fatima Rivera
Karla Ramirez
The rise of extreme heat events from global warming drives an increase in the need for personal cooling technologies. The Portable Thermoelectric Device (TEC) Based Liquid Cooling Garment project aimed to create a lightweight and flexible solution for individuals exposed to extreme heat environments. The system features flexible tubing that delivers cool water circulation from the TEC and heatsink units, user customizability at 3 cooling levels, and is battery-powered.
Lifesaver Project Rover Module
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 39
The Lifesaver Project redefines traditional healthcare infrastructure by miniaturizing essential medical equipment into a portable pod capable of being deployed in diverse environments. Our team developed a remote operated rover base to traverse uneven terrain to carry the lifesaver pod to its patients.
GA - Foam Shell Culling Station
2024-2025 - Winter
Team: 1
Team Members
Tobin Boshaw
Matthew Pope
Collin Huang
Samuel Hasegawa
Kenny Ochoa
Brandon Lopez
This project designed, built, and tested an automated Foam Shell Flow Culling Station for inertial fusion energy (IFE) research at General Atomics. The system inspects and sorts delicate foam shells (3–6 mm) in a submerged fluid environment, using a converger, sensor-camera module, and diverter. It improves inspection speed, ensures safe handling, and enhances research efficiency, supporting the advancement of IFE as a clean, sustainable energy source.
Bidirectional Guide for Treatment of Peripheral Artery Disease
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 21
Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) often necessitates surgeons to perform procedures in two directions, which traditionally requires a second incision, as current tools are unidirectional. We developed the Bidirectional Guide, a single-use transition accessory for vascular tools, which enables the insertion of a second guidewire in the opposite direction in the artery through the original point of entry after initial treatment.
Kinetic Craft Center Sign
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 6
The UCSD Craft Center offers a wide range of hands-on creative workshops, yet many students are unaware of its presence and offerings. To address this visibility challenge, a dynamic and interactive sign was developed to capture attention and promote engagement. The final design features light carts that move in the shape of the word "CRAFT" to produde the illusion that light is flowing through the sign. Layered acrylic and poured epoxy resin produce the front facing lettering of the sign.
Automated Cognitive Touchscreen Training System for Mice
2024-2025 - Winter
Team: 8
Mental illnesses are a rising problem that must be addressed through thorough studies. Researchers can draw parallels in behavior between mice and humans, making mice an appropriate medium of study. Training these mice is a rigorous and long process. To reduce the burden on researchers, we formulated an automated system, reducing the training time while improving data analysis and visualization. The system administers training tasks and rewards, collects data, and visualizes metrics.
Cell Stretcher 2.0
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 29
This project aimed to create a device that could apply three mechanical stressors (shear, normal, and stretching) to cultured endothelial cells in a decoupled manner, with the ultimate goal of quantifying their effects on genetic expression to better understand Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.
Design and Analysis of a Mode-Transitioning Robotic Leg and Test Bed for a Hexapod Rescue Robot
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 37
Team Members
William Harris
Lucas Yager
Giovanni Bernal Ramirez
Hwuiyun Park
Elias Smith
As ARCLab works to create a legged robotic rescue platform for extracting casualties, a leg mechanism capable of transforming between a high speed mode to reach the casualty and high force mode to drag the casualty to safety needed to be developed. This project focuses on augmenting the lengths of a five bar linkage leg in order to change the mechanical advantage of the leg.
Endovascular Device for Rapid Blood Clot Removal
2024-2025 - Winter
Team: 12
Our project aimed to create a safer & more efficient endovascular thrombectomy device for dialysis patients, which are susceptible to blood clots. Unlike existing devices that risk tip breakage & require multiple procedures, our design incorporated a novel non-driven tip mechanism to enhance safety & reliability. The device features a three-speed drive unit and to evaluate its performance, we developed a vascular testbed with a camera-based clot quantification system to uphold safety standards.
Carbon Blade Carbon Capture
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 15
Team Members
Ian Cosgrove
Charlie Frank
Juncheng Li
Alexandra Rodriguez
Konrad Stromayer
Technologies aimed at reducing global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have grown more popular in recent years, but high capital costs hinder implementation. Our project developed a passive carbon capture system compatible with Carbon Blade’s CAPTUS system, a compact carbon removal unit powered by onboard renewable energy. This Direct Air Contactor requires less energy and is more cost effective than large-scale facilities, while promising competitive capture rates.
Materials Break Up
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 16
Genentech, Inc. has a process that breaks down medicinal powder and processes them through their pipes to be able to create drugs. These powders are delivered in sealed bags that can clog processing pipes. This project aims to develop an automated, sanitary, and safe solution for filtering out and breaking down clumps that form due to moisture exposure. It is made up of three parts: the mechanical frame, the motorized mechanism that targets clumps in the neck of the bag, and a filtering clip.
Cellxercise Machine
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 2
The cellxercise machine was created to aid in the culturing of artificial tendon and meniscus tissue. It can apply cyclic stresses to these tissues while they are nourished by a nutrient solution in the petri dish and warmed in an incubator. The plate with the petri dish can be easily separated from the linear actuator, and moved to a fume hood for nutrient solution changes.
Sample Throughput Optimization for Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy
2024-2025 - Winter
Team: 15
Team Members
Ethan Greene
Jamie Lee
Saul Rios
Leo Serbinov
Vedanth Talla
Brayden Wong
The PISCES Lab, as part of UC San Diego's Center for Energy Research, performs Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy (TDS) on the wall materials of nuclear fusion reactors with the goal of improving the performance and longevity of these materials. The PISCES Lab's current TDS system has low sample throughput as the chamber must be opened to exchange samples. This project’s motivation was to develop a sample loading system that increases the number of samples that can be tested in a single day.
ShockE Frame Stiffness Test Fixture
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 19
Team 19 was tasked with building a test bed that was able to measure the torsional and bending stiffness of several existing bike frames. The objective of this test bed is to generate accurate stiffness data to serve as a benchmark for the design of the ShockE motorcycle frame. Having such data helps in further stages of the bike design where the company can have target stiffness and deflection values.
Resistive Torque Measurement Apparatus
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 24
Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and UC San Diego, this project developed the Resistive Torque Measurement Apparatus (RTMA) to support research on robotic movement through granular media. The RTMA measures resistive torque on a rotating intruder submerged in granular media with varying conditions. Designed for field use, it enables efficient data collection to inform the design of bio-inspired robots navigating complex granular environments.
Automating the Cutting Process Hi-Tech Honeycomb
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 38
Team Members
Rowan Barg
Micah Borg
Elijah Matthews
Daniel Sun
Automated metallic Honeycomb processing machine; with a custom clamping and fixture assembly mounted to precise, motorized translation and rotation stages. The two degrees of freedom provided by these stages allow for rapid, automated positioning of the stock beneath a cutting tool.
Acoustic Modem Integration onto Wave Glider USV
2024-2025 - Winter
Team: 16
Our team was tasked with designing and manufacturing a pressure vessel (PV) to house ROAM electronics for enhanced communication on the NIWC Pacific Wave Glider USVs. This PV integrates with the existing (PUMS) sensor system. Key design elements include the internal mounting of electronics, a pressure vessel enclosure, a hydrodynamic dome, external mounting connections to attach the PV to the tow cable, and mounts for two transducer components for acoustic communication.
SomnoStay - A Novel Oral Appliance for Obstructive Sleep Apnea
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 7
Obstructive Sleep Apnea is when the collapse of the tongue blocks the upper airway during sleep. It can cause oxygen deprivation, disrupted sleep, and
NIWC PAC UAS Launch and Recovery
2024-2025 - Spring
Team: 26
Team Members
Parker Amano
Gregory Garner
Gabriel Lepage
Bhodivista Yohn
This project developed four subsystems for NIWC PAC to support modular, low-cost drone platforms: a rugged transport case, a compact ground control station, a pneumatic fixed-wing launcher, and a recovery net. Three prototypes were built; the recovery net was delivered as a design package. These systems enhance drone deployment, control, and recovery, aligning with NIWC’s shift toward agile, unmanned solutions and away from costly, proprietary technologies.
