The project will redesign and improve an existing aquaponic growing-media cleaning system originally developed by a previous senior engineering design team. The current system can clean only approximately three gallons of lightweight expanded clay aggregate (LECA) per cycle, while the required capacity is approximately 15–20 gallons per cycle. The system also experiences significant water leakage, periodic clogging, inadequate internal filtration, and inconsistent rotation of the stainless-steel cleaning drum.

The student team will evaluate the existing design, identify the primary causes of its performance and reliability problems, and develop an improved system capable of safely and consistently cleaning larger volumes of aquaponic media. Major design areas should include:

Increasing the cleaning capacity to 15–20 gallons of LECA per cycle.
Redesigning the drum or cleaning chamber so that it maintains its shape, rotates smoothly, and can withstand repeated use.
Improving seals, plumbing connections, and containment to minimize water leakage.
Improving internal filtration and solids removal to reduce clogging and prevent roots, sediment, and organic debris from recirculating through the system.
Developing a more effective agitation or mechanical masticating mechanism to break apart compacted root balls without excessively damaging the LECA.
Evaluating and selecting an appropriately sized water pump based on required flow, pressure, solids-handling capability, reliability, and energy use.
Improving accessibility for loading, unloading, cleaning, inspection, and routine maintenance.
Incorporating appropriate operator safety features, including guarding of rotating or moving components and protection of electrical equipment from water exposure.

The final design should be durable, reliable, easy to operate, and suitable for repeated use in a greenhouse or aquaponics research environment. The project should include design calculations, component selection, fabrication or modification of a functional prototype, performance testing using root-bound LECA, and documentation of operating procedures, maintenance requirements, system capacity, water use, and cleaning effectiveness.

The objective of this project is to design, prototype, and evaluate a portable power architecture capable of delivering the same therapeutic output as Regenesis Biomedical's existing diathermy platform- the Reprieve. The student team will focus on the electrical, firmware, and systems engineering necessary to demonstrate technical feasibility.
The project scope includes:
• Evaluating battery technologies, including rechargeable and replaceable battery options
• Developing a battery management and power conversion architecture capable of supporting the required therapy output
• Designing electrical hardware, including schematics and printed circuit boards (PCBs), as needed
• Developing embedded firmware to control battery management, safety functions, and therapy operation
• Performing systems engineering activities such as requirements definition, architecture development, interface design and system integration
• Building and testing a functional engineering prototype that demonstrates equivalent therapy performance using portable power
• Characterizing system performance, including power consumption, runtime estimates, thermal performance, and output verification
The project is intended to demonstrate technical feasibility rather than create a production-ready medical device.
The following activities are outside the scope of this project:
• Final industrial or cosmetic product design
• Mechanical enclosure optimization or manufacturing-ready packaging
• Human factors or usability studies
• Clinical testing or regulatory submission
• Manufacturing process development
• Product commercialization
The preferred outcome is a working engineering prototype that validates the feasibility of a portable diathermy platform and provides a foundation for future product development.

Business Impact: Successful completion of this project will enable Regenesis Biomedical to assess the technical viability of a portable diathermy platform, supporting future development of home-use, travel-friendly, and wearable therapy devices that expand patient access while leveraging the company's existing therapeutic technology.

The engineering team will collaborate with the sponsor to establish the robot's capabilities and corresponding requirements. Additionally, a set of stretch goals for extended capabilities will be defined. The team will proceed to design the hardware, systems, software, and other key components of the robot. Once the design phase is complete, parts will be procured, assembled, tested, and refined to ensure the robot meets the outlined requirements and demonstrates its capabilities effectively.

Northrop Grumman Space Systems develops technologies on the bleeding edge of the aerospace industry, from commercial and scientific space launch to hypersonic missiles. Launching rockets is one of the most complex engineering tasks ever devised by mankind. The intricate systems which are needed to ensure a successful launch can never be fully tested on the ground in such a way to undoubtedly prove their capabilities for flight. As a result, it is common to install instrumentation throughout a vehicle for launch, often including strain gauges and accelerometers for structural/dynamic response, pressure transducers for motor performance, or thermocouples for thermal protection performance. However, these sensors provide limited insight compared to something as simple as a video, especially for more dynamic events such as stage separations and payload deployments.

Scope: Students will (1) work with Northrop Grumman engineers to understand the needs and desires of the delivered project; (2) design a camera system that interfaces with Northrop Grumman launch vehicles and provides high-quality footage of in-flight events to the ground; (3) develop design concepts that trade factors such as resolution, instrumentation, reliability, cost, manufacturability, and ease of integration/testing; (4) construct a working prototype of the designed system ahead of an in-depth test campaign; (5) as part of the design effort, conduct a Preliminary Design Review (PDR) and Critical Design Review (CDR) which are required to provide periodic updates and reviews by Northrop Grumman subject matter experts (SMEs) and leadership; (6) demonstrate and verify via a variety of tests to that all design requirements specified are met by the proposed design; (7) deliver a final product to Northrop Grumman in the form of a working prototype and final report chronicling design, analysis, and testing. The final product will be presented at the Northrop Grumman Design Day fair with additional Northrop Grumman sponsored Arizona capstone teams such as those from ASU, ASU Polytechnic, and NAU.

Develop a functional prototype of SolPet Vision, a modular AI-powered pet monitoring system that integrates computer vision, embedded hardware, and software to detect, analyze, and communicate potential pet health, safety, and behavioral events while providing a scalable foundation for future capabilities.

Cancer and many other diseases rely on histopathology for diagnosis. This process typically involves taking a tissue biopsy, processing it, staining it, and viewing the cells under a microscope. The staining step is critical because most cells are transparent at visible wavelengths. Applying stains that bind to different cellular components makes these cells visible under a microscope, thus allowing pathologists to differentiate between normal and diseased cells.
Roche Diagnostic Solutions (RDS), develops and manufactures various automated instruments to aid in the diagnostic process ranging from advanced staining systems to high quality antibodies to digital imaging and AI assisted diagnosis. Roche’s automated staining instruments help standardize and optimize the staining process, ensuring accurate and reproducible results. Meanwhile Roche’s immunohistochemistry (IHC) reagents offer disease- and/or therapeutic drug-specific staining.
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The BenchMark Ultra Plus system collects both aqueous and oil liquid waste during the staining process. The current design includes two waste carts each with a 20L aqueous container and a 5L oil container. Users must be able to empty the liquid waste without disrupting the continuous slide staining operation.


The waste system is based on design elements developed long ago. Several areas exist where a new design could help improve the customer experience and take advantage of advancements made since the initial development.


Example of areas for potential improvement (not comprehensive list)
1) Human Factors Design - 20L containers are very heavy and difficult for users to handle during waste removal.
2) Design Integration - Waste carts are separate from the system which leads to variability
3) Design for Reliability - Waste sensing variation caused by bubbles, foam, or surface imperfections
4) Design for Safety - Spigots on 20L waste containers create slip and fall risks.

The goal for this project would be to design a new waste collection subsystem to improve the usability while maintaining continuous fluid waste collection and providing removal of full waste bottles. The exact scope of this is flexible and should be defined by the UofA design team based on Roche feedback regarding potential areas of improvement. This should operate in a standalone fashion collecting up to 40L of aqueous waste and 10L of oil, but it must also interface into the Ultra Plus control system to enable it to replace the existing Ultra Plus waste collection system. The new system should provide separate interfaces for displaying and logging of waste levels and controls.

Cancer and many other diseases rely on histopathology for diagnosis. This process typically involves taking a tissue biopsy, processing it, staining it, and viewing the cells under a microscope. The staining step is critical because most cells are transparent at visible wavelengths. Applying stains that bind to different cellular components makes these cells visible under a microscope, thus allowing pathologists to differentiate between normal and diseased cells.
Roche Diagnostic Solutions (RDS), develops and manufactures various automated instruments to aid in the diagnostic process ranging from advanced staining systems to high quality antibodies to digital imaging and AI assisted diagnosis. Roche’s automated staining instruments help standardize and optimize the staining process, ensuring accurate and reproducible results. Meanwhile Roche’s immunohistochemistry (IHC) reagents offer disease- and/or therapeutic drug-specific staining.

Roche manufactures hundreds of different reagents used in various combinations specific to each individual staining protocol. Labs may use multiple staining protocols at the same time. One of the first steps in the automated staining process is for the instrument to read the slide barcodes, determine which staining protocols have been ordered, and then determine if the correct reagents are in place on the instrument to begin the staining procedures.
The goal for this project is to create a standalone prototype subsystem that is able to read up to 20 barcodes in a rack of densely packed microscope slides. This prototype should be designed such that it can eventually be incorporated into a larger staining instrument. The barcodes contain information about which staining protocol will be used on the slide. These protocols determine which reagents are needed before staining can begin. The prototype must read the barcodes fast enough for the instrument to determine if all necessary reagents are on-board before the user walks away. Since the standalone prototype will not be integrated into the instrument at this stage, it will need a user interface and the ability to store all the barcode information.
The final deliverable is a working prototype which must meet predetermined customer requirements and a report to document how the design meets (or does not meet) the specified requirements below.

Optical manufacturing test systems require repeated mating and demating of optical connectors while maintaining stable optical performance. Connector repeatability directly impacts insertion loss variation, measurement accuracy, and overall test capability in high-volume manufacturing environments.
This project will develop and demonstrate a dynamic MT-24 connector mating system capable of achieving high optical repeatability under controlled positional variations.
The test platform will consist of:
Fixed Connector Assembly
• Female MT-24 optical connector with integrated loopback fibers.
• Mounted on a precision x, y motion stage.
• Capable of manual movement in:
o X-direction (left-right)
o Y-direction (up-down)
• Position offsets of ±150 µm will be introduced to simulate connector placement variation and manufacturing tolerances.
Active Connector Assembly
• Male MT-24 optical connector.
• Student team will design and build a fixture and actuation mechanism to:
o Securely hold the male connector.
o Automatically connect and disconnect from the female connector.
o Maintain consistent mating conditions over repeated connection cycles without damaging female connector alignment hole.
o Accommodate positional offsets introduced by the moving female connector.
System Characterization
The completed system will be used to evaluate:
• Optical insertion loss (IL)
• Channel-to-channel variation across 24 fibers
• Repeatability over multiple mating cycles
• Sensitivity to X/Y positional offsets
• Mechanical repeatability of the mating mechanism

Future autonomous systems may need to operate in contested environments where GPS is unavailable and radio-frequency emissions are restricted. This project will develop and demonstrate a small uncrewed aircraft system that can perform a search-and-mark mission using only onboard sensing, computation, and autonomy. The UAS will launch from a known location, navigate without GPS, search for an object of interest, identify the object, illuminate it with a pointable eye-safe collimated light source, and return home without intentional RF emissions during the mission. The object of interest will be a life vest placed at least 200 m from the launch site within a search region of at least 30" m"×30" m" , and it will not be visible from the launch point. During the mission, operators may observe the system but may not provide input, commands, navigation updates, or object-location cues to the UAS. Mission execution should be performed autonomously after launch.

Student Teams Will
• Design or integrate a UAS platform capable of autonomous operation without GPS-based navigation.
• Develop onboard sensing with onboard or off board estimation methods for navigating relative to the launch point.
• Implement autonomous search behaviors for locating a life vest in an area not visible from launch.
• Develop computer vision or other sensing algorithms to detect the life vest, compute can either be onboard or communicated through a non-RF link
• Integrate a pointable eye-safe collimated light source to illuminate the life vest after detection that can dwell on the life vest for an amount of time prescribed at the start of the mission ranging from 10 seconds to 5 minutes.
• Estimate the life vest location relative to the launch point with less than 8 m error.
• Demonstrate autonomous mission execution without operator input during flight and without intentional RF emissions.
Student Teams Are Encouraged to Pursue
• Providing mission status or operator feedback while maintaining the no-RF-emission and no-operator-input constraints.
• Implementing SLAM, visual-inertial odometry, optical flow, or other GPS-denied navigation methods.
• Improving autonomous search efficiency and return-to-home accuracy.
• Operating in cluttered environments or against cluttered visual backgrounds.
• Operating in degraded visual environments, such as low light, glare, dust, haze, shadows, or partial occlusion.
• Improving object detection confidence and reducing false detections.
• Demonstrating robust performance over multiple trials with varied life vest placement.

Creation of a Modular Emulation and Demonstration Tool (MEDT) for use in demonstrating hardware in the loop (HWIL) capabilities.

Creation of this tool will involve creating a modular plug and play system with swappable components that attach to a modular skeleton capable of being installed into a 3D printed model.

The system would be able to connect to each component sense the type of component and connect in with the appropriate communication protocol. For input components (IMU, ground height sensor) the system should take in those inputs and relay commands to the output components (fin actuators or tvc actuators)

Stretch work: The system would be able to ingest a trajectory and mimic the commands for the available systems (ie, fin actuators, nozzle actuators, seeker/sensors).