Innovation spotlighted during Senior Design Showcase 2024
Nearly 140 students on 33 teams from the UNL College of Engineering presented their design capstone projects at the 2024 Senior Design Showcase in May at Kiewit Hall. Among the projects on display were Robotic Arm for Mars Helicopter designed by students Samuel Harvey, Jonah Bricker, Matthew Dohmen and Charles McCoy, Jr., and the Weed Terminator, designed by students Jacob Lundgren, Pete Tungtweegait, Hein Htet Win and Logan Glynn.The Weed Terminator is a robot that autonomously patrols fields using AI and cameras to identify and say "hasta lavista" to weeds by eliminating the problem field growth; and NeuroPong, that was developed by students Austin Babak, Jenny Olander, Jacob Dalton and Jacob Stewart, to create a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) using Electroencephalography (EEG) and allow a user to play Pong with their mind. Using custom-made hardware, including an electrode cap, signal amplifiers, and embedded system design, persons attending the Senior Design Showcase sat down and interacted with the computer with nothing but their thoughts.
The Nebraska Engineering Senior Design Showcase was held inside Kiewit Hall on Friday, May 3. Projects on display by major included 21 mechanical engineering projects; seven chemical engineering projects; and five projects from electrical and computer engineering student teams. More information, including video of several projects, is available here. Alkylation Process, a chemical engineering project by Thomas Hope and Benjamin Ebel, was voted by attendees as the "People's Choice Award" for 2024. Alkylation Process consists of simulating, designing, and economically evaluating an alkylation unit. Hope and Ebel simulated a 100KTA hydrofluoric acid catalyzed alkylation process, which is widely used nationally for alkylation production.