In 2022 Biosphere 2 acquired a hydroponic farm housed in a 40-foot shipping container. The systems in the farm, including climate control, irrigation and nutrient dosing, and lighting are all controlled by software, both local and cloud based. Parameters are set according to the specifications for the crops being grown and the farm is governed by a controller that maintains the specified conditions. In June of 2022, personnel at Biosphere 2 started the first crop, harvesting it in August. Since then, staff at Biosphere 2 have grown and harvested as much as 120 pounds of produce a week out of the farm.
On April 30, 2025, the company that designed and built the farm filed for bankruptcy, leaving all owners of the container farms in a quandary as to how they will continue growing produce. The company has assured the grower-operators that the locally-based software will continue to function but that the cloud-based software may be terminated, thereby eliminated ability to observe and control the farm remotely.
Our goal in this challenge is to retain the local-based controls while creating an ad-hoc self-hosted cloud-based controls that can monitor and control our farm remotely. This will require students working in such diverse disciplines as biosystems engineering, computer science, and controlled environment.

The Biosphere 2 – Landscape Evolution Observatory was recently awarded the Office of Research and Partnership’s inaugural 2025 Big Idea Challenge (BIC).
Our grand challenge is to address global environmental problems through the emerging science of biological landscape terraformation—a discipline inspired by the vision of sustaining or creating complex, multifunctional ecosystems that support diverse lifeforms, including human communities, on Earth, Mars, and beyond.
As part of our BIC initiative, we will develop advanced AI and digital twin models capable of predicting, initiating, and guiding terraformation processes. To validate these models for Mars-relevant applications, we must first establish dedicated experimental infrastructure.
A senior design engineering team will be mentored to design and prototype this infrastructure in the form of a high-fidelity controlled-environment chamber. The chamber will allow precise regulation of key environmental variables, including atmospheric pressure, gas composition, irrigation, temperature, and humidity. An integrated array of sensors will provide continuous, high-resolution monitoring and control, enabling rigorous testing and iterative refinement of our digital twin simulations.
This infrastructure will serve as a critical step toward bridging predictive models with real-world planetary landscape terraformation experiments.

Project Goal/Summary: The goal of this project is to develop a combination camera plus radar system to remotely assess the overall stability, status and vital signs of an individual within a crowd or group using noncontact means. People operate in groups, they congregate at events yet while together a single individual may suddenly become ill, faint, pass out or worse – suffer cardiac arrest with potential death. Presently no system or means exists to assess and surveil a group and instantly determine who within the crowd is at risk of serious health compromise. The present device and system aim at just that – to rapidly identify that individual in a crowd at risk and summon help. CAM-DAR will consist of 1. a group of video cameras which can monitor a defined space where people congregate, 2. a system to analyze and specifically identify camera images to determine who within the crowd shows evidence of altered habitus, posture and imminent compromise (criteria defined), 3. an image tracking, analysis and actuation system to activate and localize a focused mm wave radar system; 4 a mm Wave radar system on an “aim-able” alt-azimuth platform to allow targeting of the at risk individual with radar to determine heart rate, breathing rate and temperature. 5. a Data collection and Heads-up display system with incorporated notification system to allow human-decided or autonomous notification of a first responder. Developing and implementing CAM-DAR will save lives!!

Project Background: People operate in groups, they congregate at events yet while together a single individual may suddenly become ill, faint, pass out or worse – suffer cardiac arrest with potential death. Presently no system or means exist to assess and surveil a group and instantly determine who within the crowd is at risk of serious health compromise. The present device and system aims at just that – to rapidly identify that individual in a crowd at risk and summon help. The motivation for this system stems from the fact that even in hospitals in the emergency room where a family brings an ill family member for rapid care, while the sick individual is instantly attended to, families and people waiting in the waiting room, where there is no monitoring ongoing, often become ill, pass out and have even died without any medical attention. The opportunity for this device exists anywhere people congregate including: waiting rooms in the emergency department, clinics, health offices, radiology suites, dialysis units; and even in non-medical spaces such as theaters, stadiums and beyond.

Requirements: Step1: Get up to speed - Team will research Camera/video population surveillance, image, body and facial analysis; mm wave Radar and remote non-contact vital signs detection. Team will have the benefit of work done this past summer by a range of students under ACABI on this project. Step 2: Design and build video/camera monitoring system with analysis system of body posture – lean, angulation, slumping, fall over or collapse; facial analysis – of compromise and illness. Step 3 – Develop actuation control system where spatial coordinates of the space surveilled are defined, the at risk individual identified (step 2) leading to an actuation signal to aim the mm wave radar system. Step 4 – Build the actuatable pivotable alt-azimuth platform to allow “aim and fire” of the radar system to collect data and analyze the at-risk individual. Step 5 - a mm Wave radar system to allow focused assessment of the individual at risk individual to determine heart rate, breathing rate and temperature. Step 6 - A Data collecting and Heads-up display system with incorporated notification means to allow human-decided or autonomous notification of a first responder.

One of ASML's metrology tool currently uses a rotatory device, Illumination Mode Selector (IMS), to switch between different apertures to define the pupil shape, with a switch time of ~ 12 ms. However, this switch time will become a bottleneck in future sensor throughput. ASML is interested in alternative cost-effective solutions that will enable fast switching (<1.5 ms) between apertures with high photon efficiency. Typical apertures have the following geometry- circular, annular, squares, quadrants.

Searching for driven students to review literature to identify alternative technologies and numerically investigate them to qualify them against provided specifications. Use learnings to design and develop a prototype.

***This project is conducting remote interviews. Please visit https://bit.ly/ASML26063 to schedule a time to speak to the sponsor***

Project Goal/Summary: The purpose of this project is to develop an effective system to process used dialysate fluid to allow for its clean up and purification, recycling of water, as well as restoration of dialysate fluid to normal electrolyte balance for reuse. Successful development of this system will benefit hundreds of thousands of patients and lead to great water economy and overall cost savings to the healthcare system.

Project Background: Kidney disease is on the rise with 1 in 7 adults sadly developing chronic kidney disease in the US with 5% progressing to end stage renal disease requiring hemodialysis. Hemodialysis (HD) is the dominant form of blood purification employed for patients with end-stage renal disease. Operationally, present HD systems utilize a hollow fiber kidney system in which blood is perfused thru while dialysate is cross-perfused over and surrounding the fiber bundle allowing for fluid, electrolyte and waste exchange, with equilibration based on the tonicity and ion concentration of the dialysate. Unfortunately, present systems require access to large sources of water and dialysate, are hospital or clinic-based, and non-portable. A given patient uses 300 to 600 liters of water per week in HD which is literally poured down the drain! With 600,000 patients in the U.S. on dialysis weekly this equates to 360 billion liters of water and dialysate wasted per week - dialysate presently is used once and is literally pored down the drain - a terrible loss of water and dialysate. We propose creating a system – “WATER ECONOMY” to recapture dialysate and water, to allow for its reuse. Our overall goal is to develop a system which has applicability to both hospital/clinic system as well as for evolving home portable systems, freeing up the dependence and use of significant water supplies.

Requirements: Step1: Get up to speed - Team will research current approaches to hemodialysis, dialysate composition and potential methods of clean up. Team will be provided with and have the benefit of theory and analysis done by UA Chem Engineering students in the past. Step 2: Design and build purification and recycling means – A. Ion/urea removal - Fabricate a system with columns of activated charcoal, urease, zirconium oxide, and zirconium phosphate to remove ions/urea to defined specs. B. Filtration – Develop a high flow, rapid filtration system to remove particulates, C. Disinfection system – Design a UV disinfection system up to the required FDA standards. Step 3. Design and build Optimized Housing and Recycled Water/Dialysate Containment – Design a best footprint system for a small hospital-based unit as a first step, with a design for a portable unit as well. Teams will be offered visits to present hemodialysis facilities to measure and gain real world dimensions and specs. Step 4: Design testing port – A port for periodic testing with potential on-line sensor incorporation will be added for continual information as to system efficacy and performance. Step 5: A GUI readout and data tracking system – A data display, logging and report generating system will be developed to document run efficiency and quality control. Step 6: Electrolyte “Add back” - Following clean-up of a defined volume of dialysate a rapid assessment via a simple sensor module will be performed allowing for addition of electrolytes (based on loss during cleanup) to reconstitute levels to normal Step 7. Test and verify the efficacy of the system – Effluent output of the system will be tested vs. fresh dialysate and purified water to compare efficacy.

Project Goal/Summary: To develop a kit or Pak of air-deployable ocean drones – i.e. AQUABOTS – to monitor, map and sample materials from ocean and large body of water, or surveil contained vital infrastructure, e.g. wind farms, creating data maps and potential sample recovery. Aquabots operate as a swarm under command control.
Aquabots are autonomous water/ocean drones designed to monitor ocean health, sense a wide variety of water indicators and collect material on either a small or large scale (depending upon final drone size); Bots may also monitor vital offshore infrastructure – e.g. wind farms, oil rigs or platforms. The project is motivated by mounting threat to our oceans with plastic contamination and pollutants harming a wide variety of ocean life – ultimately affecting humans. The team will benefit from excellent work of three prior Sr. Engineering teams who built modular components of the Aquabot, namely 1. a simple control and sensor/data gathering system for the drone fleet, and 2. a satellite communication system for the swarm and 3. a novel hull design. It is now time to focus on optimizing the system and building a working demo kit – an AeroPak of an aquatic drone system that may be deployed from an airplane, safely land at sea, disperse and be controllable while gathering sensor information, storing it and communicating info creating a data map!!
Background, Rationale and Project Scope:
The health of the ocean is critical for overall earth and human health. Of concern is the increasing stress being placed on the world’s oceans, and for that matter other bodies of water including lakes and rivers. Increasing pollution from runoff and population growth; increased release/dumping of pollutants, petrochemicals and garbage; lack of recyclability of plastics with generation of dispersed microplastics - all are exponentially affecting ocean/water health. The relentless increase of ocean waste is at risk for impacting the health not only of the oceans but also those organisms who rely directly or indirectly on the sea including humans.
AquaBot drones are being developed to: monitor the state of the oceans, create a data map of specific variables (e.g. salinity, pH, Temp) obtain regional samples and recover plastic and other contaminating materials.
Drones are designed to operate as a fleet or swarm that communicate to a central command, as well as with each other. Operation of swarm behavior to be demonstrated physically or in-silico. Drones must be be robust to be dropped from an airplane as a collective kit. Drone hull design should be self-righting with optimized fluid dynamics - minimal drag/shear, minimal turbulence, with reduced propulsive energy requirements. The drone body should have adequate contained volume to house the propulsion system (electric motor), control and data storage motherboard, sensor bay, witha secure waterproof portal for sensor placement externally.
Specifications – I. Pak – 1. Consists of at least 1 physical drone and up to 8 drones demonstrated in-silico - with contained sensors (e.g. camera, temp., pH, salinity); 2. Safe parachute and aero deployment system to withstand airplane drop terminal velocity, 3. command and control system, 4. communication, 5. data logging and telemetry and 6. Data display map. II. Individual Drone/Hull/Envelope - 1 meter long hull unit, self-righting, waterproof to IP68 – i.e. waterproof to a depth of 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes, a non-rope snagging design, run duration 5 hrs, Internal volume of 0.07m3, RC controllable, capable of parachute deployment and ground impact at 40 mph. III. Command and Control – system needs to operate as a controllable “swarm.” Drones should use an Automated Identification System protocol (AIS) to transmit their position and be able to monitor each other’s position. Key control parameters are collision avoidance, search pattern adherence, vessel integrity/health, sensor data communication, error reporting, position mapping. Also diagnostics and maintenance reporting.

Activity/Requirements/Expectations: 1. The team will start by reviewing ALL plans, work and results of prior teams, which is fully available. They will perform gap analysis based on the specifications and the results to date. 2. They will develop a plan, which fills in the gaps, and design and build a working prototype system deployable from a plane, 3. They will demonstrate system operation and test in an aquatic environment.

Specifications – I. Pak – 1. Consists of at least 1 physical drone and up to 8 drones demonstrated in-silico - with contained sensors (e.g. camera, temp., pH, salinity); 2. Safe parachute and aero deployment system to withstand airplane drop terminal velocity, 3. command and control system, 4. communication, 5. data logging and telemetry and 6. Data display map. II. Individual Drone/Hull/Envelope - 1 meter long hull unit, self-righting, waterproof to IP68 – i.e. waterproof to a depth of 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes, a non-rope snagging design, run duration 5 hrs, Internal volume of 0.07m3, RC controllable, capable of parachute deployment and ground impact at 40 mph. III. Command and Control – system needs to operate as a controllable “swarm.” Drones should use an Automated Identification System protocol (AIS) to transmit their position and be able to monitor each other’s position. Key control parameters are collision avoidance, search pattern adherence, vessel integrity/health, sensor data communication, error reporting, position mapping. Also diagnostics and maintenance reporting.

The Metallic Design Team will prepare an Order of Magnitude report as identified in the Scope of Work. The Metallic Design Competition has one guaranteed deliverable with a second deliverable potentially due upon favorable evaluation from the first deliverable. We will refer to the first deliverable as Phase 1 (the Order of Magnitude Study) and Phase 2 (a second project building on the terms of the first deliverable).

The senior design team will work with Freeport-McMoRan’s Sierrita Mine to develop a revised long-range mine plan aimed at increasing the net present value (NPV) of the operation by 20%. Using the site’s resource model, students will determine the optimal increase in production rate needed to achieve this goal, while identifying and addressing operational, technical, and economic constraints.
The project will involve generating base pit shell designs, revising the mine plan, and preparing an updated financial model to evaluate the proposed expansion strategy. Students will integrate geologic, geotechnical, and economic considerations into their designs, balancing production targets with practical mine development sequencing.

The senior design team will work with BHP, to develop a tailings storage facility remediation design based on a Technical Design Package prepared from GISTM public disclosures and recent project documentation. The package includes site layouts, borehole and CPT logs, interpreted cross-sections, and design/loading criteria. Students will begin by preparing a technical proposal using publicly available information, and upon sponsor approval, will receive the full design package.

Building off of LARP I, the team will design and build a prototype lunar regolith processing unit capable of operating under standard temperature and pressure for initial testing. The system will be semi-autonomous, using an off-the-shelf robotic platform (e.g., F110) adapted to mine simulated regolith, process it, and deliver a specified tonnage per hour to a stockpile. Key design tasks include energy usage analysis, footprint (area) calculations, and integration of position-tracking features.