Design Day Open House a rite of passage for career-bound seniors
Students start the last leg of their undergrad journeys with capstone project choices.
(From left) Biosystems engineering seniors Kaden Thomas and Petrea Houska with mining engineering senior Michael Bass meet 111 sponsors representing 38 companies at the 2025 Craig M. Berge Design Day Open House.
With an eye toward prize-winning capstone projects and their dream jobs, 400 College of Engineering seniors got to know sponsors at the 2025-2026 Craig M. Berge Design Day Open House on Aug. 28.
Eager to land one of his top picks among the 66 Interdisciplinary Capstone projects, aerospace engineering major Andrew Avalos arrived at the University of Arizona Grand Ballroom early.
“I’m super excited about networking and getting my name out there to open doors for a possible career,” he said. “My top project is 26036, where you work with drones and disaster recovery systems.”
General Dynamics Mission Systems is sponsoring a team to design signal relay drones that fly over disaster zones where communications have been knocked out and redirect distress signals to a frequency the U.S. Coast Guard monitors for rescue missions.
The project involves designing an original or modifying an existing drone platform, said Jason Landell, systems engineer for General Dynamics Mission Systems.
‘These capstone projects really set us up for career and networking opportunities with professionals and mentors of the engineering program,’ says aerospace engineering senior Riley Mays.
The open house gives students and company representatives a chance to connect before project match day, the following Monday, when students either accept invitations from sponsors to join their teams or submit their final project preferences. Avalos accepted an invitation from sponsor Sandia National Laboratories, another top project choice, to help Team 26041 develop a drone that senses and tracks other drones.
The capstone course, a graduation requirement for all engineering seniors, serves as a bridge between academic studies and professional careers.
“When our students go out and interview, this experience really gives them a competitive edge,” said David W. Hahn, the Craig M. Berge Dean of the college, opening the annual event. “The fact that you all come together to bring industry-relevant problems to our students and combine it with years of mentorship experience is empowering and a game changer for their careers.”
Integrating AI for job readiness
Steve Larimore, lead instructor for the Interdisciplinary Capstone program, updated sponsors on artificial intelligence guidelines, explaining that students are encouraged to use AI tools for identifying similar projects and engineering standards.
“It is a way to do these projects faster and more accurately, gaining better results in the process,” he said.
Several sponsors have already incorporated AI into their design requirements. Freeport-McMoRan is sponsoring a software development project that uses AI to model data collection automation for the mining company’s leaching process. Leaching is a chemical process that separates copper from ore.
“Our current process for collecting data for our leaching program is manual, and that worked great when we had 10 samples, but now we have over 100,” said Joanna Robertson, Freeport-McMoRan’s director of metal recovery.
”It's good to get a fresh perspective on this problem, and these engineering students are some of the brightest minds around.”
Bringing a product to market
One first-time sponsor is looking to get FDA approval and commercialize its design.
Startup Senphonix is advancing a wearable sleeve sensor that monitors heart rate, respiration and temperature.
The company launched with a wearable health device licensed from biomedical engineering associate professor Philipp Gutruf.
“This project is important right now because these measurements are done manually,” said Mike Haldane, cofounder and CEO of Senphonix. “It takes about 20 percent of a nurse’s time to do that, so it will be a huge time saver and especially important because of the current nursing shortage across the country.”
Haldane added that the U of A capstone program was unique, connecting companies with “some of the best student engineers.”