The rapid cycle amine system developed by NASA to remove excess humidity from space suits makes the air in the suits uncomfortably dry for astronauts, so the project sponsor asked the team to design a space suit humidity-control system. The team used Paragon’s Nafion bundle technology to control space suit humidity levels. Nafion is a copolymer of tetrafluoroethylene that is semipermeable to water. The design team designed a mathematical model of the system, including various orientations of the Nafion bundles, and determined the best bundle configuration. The team built and tested a prototype in the Paragon lab, which includes a test bed that simulates normal breathing, the Nafion bundle chamber, and a replica of the current rapid cycle amine system.

Raytheon, the project sponsor, wants to know if augmented reality could be used in its assembly operations, so it asked the design team to test and analyze the DAQRI augmented reality helmet, a wearable human-machine interface that allows users to interact intuitively with their surroundings. The team enabled the helmet to overlay the wearer’s view with animated work instructions on how to assemble a 3U CubeSat model. The team designed a CubeSat and created printed assembly instructions, which were then converted to augmented reality instructions viewable in the helmet. After validating the helmet’s capabilities, the overlaid instructions were tested by having two groups assemble the model, one using the helmet, the other working from printed instructions. For both groups, the team recorded average time taken to build the model and the average number of errors.

Quell is a wearable transcutaneous electrical nerve-stimulation device used to treat chronic pain. A number of studies have shown that in addition to treating chronic pain, nerve stimulation can also be used to alleviate muscle spasticity affecting people with upper motor neuron disorders such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, and traumatic brain injury. The goal of this project is to develop an Android application to control a Quell device to reduce spasticity. The app allows the user to adjust settings such as intensity of nerve stimulation, time of therapy session, and various notification settings for ease of use. The ultimate objective is to enable full flexibility and control of the Quell device through the Android application and to improve the at-home treatment options available to spasticity patients.

This project required the team to design and machine the tooling needed to produce a silicon nitride turbine blade in a high-temperature direct current sintering furnace. Following an in-depth study of furnace capabilities, the team designed a turbine blade made of an insulating aerospace material, grade M silicon nitride produced by H.C. Stark. Blade geometry design was based on computational simulation.

The project’s objective is to develop a chest strap mounted device that detects heart rate, then transmits data via Wi-Fi to the cloud and displays it on a smartphone. The team developed an app that receives analytical data from the cloud and allows the user to see heart rate, exertion level, and heart rate variability. Users can view previous workouts on the app and compare them to their most recent workout, as well as viewing multiple users’ signals simultaneously. This would make the app ideal for an athletic coach, who could monitor an entire team, both on the scene and remotely, and study all team members simultaneously.

The goal of this project is to develop a system for converting a liquid-based suspension of biospecies into a bioaerosol that is driven at a controlled flow rate and concentration into a microfluidic device for lung-on-a-chip applications. The concept of lung-on-a-chip involves the co-culture of human endothelial and epithelial cells on either side of a porous membrane separating two microchannels stacked on top of each other. An air-liquid interface can be established by driving airflow through the epithelial microchannel while maintaining media flow through the endothelial microchannel. The result is a device that mimics the function of the respiratory zone bronchioles of the human lung. The lung-on-a-chip device can then be used to test the effects of various external stimuli, such as drugs and toxins, to mimic the response of a human lung. The team developed a method to generate and drive viable bioaerosols through lung-on-a-chip devices in a controlled manner, allowing quantitative characterization of the bioaerosol flow. Ultimately, these biomimetic microfluidic devices can be used to replace the standard cell monolayers and animal models in clinical and basic research.

The team was asked to design, build, and test a small-scale version of a proposed wastewater-reuse system for the Shamrock Foods facility in Phoenix, Arizona. Shamrock wants to reuse the 500,000 gallons of water per day it currently discharges into the city’s wastewater system. The team created a process that uses a membrane bioreactor, reverse-osmosis system, and ultraviolet disinfection step. Shamrock Foods wants to recycle this water, treated to EPA guidelines, back into its various production processes.

The team’s objective is to design and build a laser-based collision-prevention system to prevent the forward collision of a radio-controlled car. The system relies on the analog signal provided by an optical laser detector. The laser functions in a controlled environment and detects objects in its forward path. The analog signal from the laser detector is processed, digitally converted, and sent to a microcontroller. Software in the microcontroller analyzes the data and determines whether the radio-controlled vehicle should brake. The design could be used in automobile, aircraft or other safety applications.

Texas Instruments asked the team to design a marketing product that would attract more customers to the company’s booth at a trade show and showcase the performance of its devices. SensorBall uses components from the TI analog portfolio, including an analog-to-digital converter, digital-to-analog converter, operational amplifier, voltage regulator, and microcontrollers. An accelerometer, vibration motor, heart rate monitor, light sensor, and temperature sensor complement the TI products and show what an integrated system might look like. Users interact via a graphical user interface with games and demonstration modes incorporated into the ball, which is made of clear plastic with an internal polycarbonate structure to house all the components. The ball communicates with a personal computer via Bluetooth Low Energy, and a user interface displays sensor output and enables mode changes.

The Soft Material 3-D Printer was developed to reduce the high costs of personalized medicine in the medical simulation industry. Products printed in 3-D are cost-effective if they are within tolerance and comparable in resulting properties to currently used molds. Such 3-D products allow quick, cheap production of simulated patient systems suited specifically to the patient. The printer was designed to take stereolithography files generated from images of a patient's organs taken by, for example, magnetic resonance imaging. The files are run through a layering program called Slic3r and output to the 3-D printer, which is equipped with an interface for changing settings to optimize the print job. The goal is to print objects using materials chosen for their similarity to human tissue and ease of ultrasound signal penetration, which is achieved using an extrusion print method with a silicone solution that simulates material properties within the range of human tissue once cured. The print specifications are manipulated by controlling pressure, temperature, composition, and pot timing. These factors allow a predicable result in terms of tolerance, reliability, and use in medical simulation.