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F: 7:30am - 4:00pm

Math, Engineering Design Showcase Spring, April: Home

Extra Credit

Handout

This showcase and competition highlights many of the school’s engineering design projects and represent our students’ success. The competition is open to all engineering design projects for each discipline of engineering. The evening will host 80+ judges made up of engineering alumni and local industry to help with the poster session competition.   


The event will be open from 4:30-7:00pm to the public.  So everyone is welcome!! Awards will be announced around 6:30pm. This event should prove to be very informative event especially if you are interested in math and science majors in college and careers. You will be able to talk to current undergraduate and graduates students to learn about the types of projects they work on given their respective majors. You are welcome to attend anytime during the showcase 4:30-7 PM.

For more information about the event: Rice University Engineering Design Showcase

Instructions to earn extra credit

  1. You must visit at least 5 projects and speak to the presenters to complete the attached form. (You are not required to turn in the included form as it is only to help you take notes while you are at the event.)
  2. Your must type your final project! Hand-written projects will not be accepted.
  3. It must include pictures of each booth and at least one selfie of you at the event. 
  4. Your final project can be submitted electronically (via email). 
  5. The final project is due by the end of the day on Friday, April 19, 2019.

​Enjoy your time at the event and welcome to the world of engineering and mathematical applications!

Example Project - Methanol Production from Cow Manure

Membership level - 2018-2019 Team
2019 Excellence in Capstone Engineering, 2019 Best Energy-Related Engineering Design Award
 
Team Name - M&M
Project Title - Methanol Production from Cow Manure
Design Challenge - For many reasons, the concept of considering manure as a resource rather than a waste makes a lot of sense. There is no lack of quantity when feedlots can offer abundant supplies of manure for feedstock. Currently, many of the methods disposing of manure as a waste generates massive quantities of greenhouse gases. Converting the manure to fuel products will greatly reduce the emissions of both methane and carbon dioxide. A number of process intensification opportunities have been applied to make the production of methanol and biofuel more competitive, demonstrating an efficient way to convert a waste into a valuable fuel opportunity.
Departments: Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

An automated device to lift medical equipment out of bleach in Malawi.

Membership level 2018-2019
Best Technology for Low-Resource Settings Design Award at Engineering Design Showcase 2019
Team Name - CleanMachine
Project Title - An automated device to lift medical equipment out of bleach in Malawi
Design Challenge
Tracking sterilization times is a challenging task for hospital staff in busy environments. Consequently, prolonged NaOCl exposure leads to gradual deterioration of medical tools, such as the rusting of metal forceps or degrading of plastic tubing. Our mission is to design a mechanical device to automatically lift sterilized tools out of the buckets of bleach to preserve medical equipment used in Malawi.
Our team has successfully developed a functioning, high fidelity prototype of the CleanMachine – a device to automatically lift tools out of bleach after they’re done being sterilized for low resource settings. The CleanMachine is a completely mechanical, two bucket system. The inner bucket holds tools being sanitized and controls lifting the tools out of bleach with floats. The outer bucket holds the bleach and control the timing mechanism. Our timing is controlled with a mechanical kitchen timer that has been modified to include a plunger and a body that fits to the outer bucket. This plunger displaces a custom, medium friction hook and eye that keeps the lid closed. When the soak time is completed, the lid will be unlatched, and the floats attached to the inner bucket will drive the inner bucket out of the bleach. The lid raising is facilitated by a counterweight and pulley.

We have tested how this design holds up against 4 of our 5 design criteria. Durability testing has yet to be performed, however we are optimistic that our device will hold up well with long exposure to bleach because the floats are designed to sit in pools with high chlorine levels. Our weight capacity is below the design criteria, however upon further research, we believe the device’s weight capacity will suffice for the hospital’s load. The device is able to operate for 2 of the 3 common soak times; while this doesn’t meet our goal of it performing all 3, we don’t consider this a failure because our deice can perform the most common time of 10 minutes, which is almost exclusively used by the hospital. Our device successfully meets the criteria for autonomy and manufacturing cost, ensuring that it can be financially accessible to the hospital and that it achieve the goal of creating an autonomous system.

The CleanMachine is designed so it can be manufactured in Malawi. We have developed a comprehensive manual for clinician use of the device and for future groups to construct the device. In the scaling up of our device, we recommend the use of a stronger mechanical timer and the addition of more buoyant floats so the device can operate with more diverse loads. Last Updated: 04/17/2019.
Departments: Global Health Technologies and Bioengineering

Visit at least 5 projects/teams.

For each of the 5 teams

A. Title of Presentation/ Team

B. Give a brief description of the project

Example Project: Streamlined Intramedullary Nail Fixation for Long Bone Fractures

Membership level - 2018-2019 Team
Winner of the top prize of the Excellence in Engineering award at the 2019 Engineering Design Showcase at Rice University.
Team Name - Drill Team Six
Project Title - Streamlined Intramedullary Nail Fixation for Long Bone Fractures
Design Challenge
People that sustain long bone fractures typically require surgical stabilization using an intramedullary nail implant. One of the major challenges in this procedure involves anchoring the implant using a X-ray to locate a 5mm diameter screw hole in the implanted nail for securing the nail in place with a screw. This challenge requires a high level of accuracy which can be quite frustrating for those performing the procedure. By developing a streamlined mechanism for fixation of the nail that does not rely on X-rays or tedious precision technique, surgeons and hospitals will benefit from the reduced time sick trauma patients must remain under anesthesia, decreased time spent in the operating room, and minimized X-ray radiation exposure to patient and medical surgical staff.
Rice Winner 2019 Engineering
 
Rice Engineering 2019 Winner