Recently, Texas A&M University engineering undergraduate students transformed their inventive projects into competitive content for the 2019 Virtual Project Showcase for a chance to win prizes and present their work.
The Virtual Project Showcase is a platform that the College of Engineering has created to explore the minds of Texas A&M’s students. Previously meant for only senior capstone students, 2018 was the first year it was opened up to all undergraduate engineering students.
“The Virtual Project Showcase provides the college an opportunity to show industry professionals around the world the amazing engineering solutions developed by students to address real-world problems,” said Magda Lagoudas, executive director of Industry and Nonprofit Partnerships and instructional associate professor. “Industries sponsoring senior capstone design projects are able to augment their technical teams while supporting our college goals to prepare our students for successful careers.”
In this platform, student teams are able to make a video of their end-of-year project and enter it into the competition where it is judged. Each video is assessed by three judges who can access videos remotely. These three judges determine and rate the project’s innovative qualities among other components. Within the showcase there are two categories that the participants’ videos are judged, capstone and noncapstone projects.
The winning teams in the capstone category are:
- “The Sandbox” from the Department of Mechanical Engineering
- Schlumberger Anti-Clog Nozzle from the Department of Mechanical Engineering
- JetBlue from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Joshua VanCura, member of “The Sandbox” team, said their goal was to develop a large-scale test apparatus that would allow for the controlled experimentation on granular materials. While the team had challenges of its own, he said the bond he was able to form with his teammates was valuable and they were able to work well with each other to apply their skills.
The most important thing that my team and I learned from this experience was how to apply all of the tools that we had been putting into our engineering toolbox over the last four years. For me personally, this project has set me up for success in many ways.
VanCura next plans to pursue his graduate degree and said that the bonds that he formed with his teammates, sponsor and the university’s staff have completed his undergraduate degree in the best way possible.
The winning videos in the noncapstone category are:
- A low-cost motion capture system using smartphones to resolve healthcare issues in low-income countries from the AggieE_Challenge
- Texas A&M University Sounding Rocketry Team for Design Competition
- RoboMaster Robotics Standard Robots for Design Competition
Chiseung Lee, member of the motion capture system, and his team began the project initially as a way to gather and build their skills in communication and apply their engineering backgrounds productively to a place in the real world.
“I learned more about the skills required in engineering by teaching myself or learning as a team,” Lee said.
Because of the project’s invaluableness to him, Lee said he undoubtedly knows that it will help him in the biomedical field in the future.
This year, additional top-placing teams in the industrial and systems engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and mechanical engineering departments also received distinction for their projects.
As a culmination of the projects these teams have worked so hard on for the past semester, the students are able to flaunt their creations in this outlet. Winning teams from the capstone and noncapstone categories received monetary prizes for their project videos ranging from $100-$1,000.