Self-disinfecting Catheters & Surgical Drains Using Safe Antimicrobial Light

Project number
25055
Organization
LumiVici
Offering
ENGR498-F2024-S2025
The IVs and catheters developed or modified must be easy to apply by medical staff, and biomedical designed for safe and effective use within the hospital environment. The UV LED light source may be located remotely and coupled to one or more IVs or catheters by light guides or fibers. Alternatively, multiple LEDs may be mounted at various locations of the IV or catheter for direct illumination. The light level of the UV source will be monitored and regulated by a simple control circuit or a microcontroller to ensure within federal safety limits. Optical, mechanical, electrical, and software designs must be well documented. Light measurements must also be provided demonstrating that safe irradiance levels within appropriate government safety standards at all illuminated locations of the device. Light can distributed via direct illumination or optical fibers or light guides and should be safe for human or veterinary use.

Hybrid Electric Retrofit Demonstration for a Drilling Rig

Project number
25054
Organization
Geomechanics Southwest, Inc
Offering
ENGR498-F2024-S2025
This project focuses on designing a retrofit for a drilling rig with a hybrid electric power system to demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of this technology on a small scale. The objective is to replace the conventional Cummins diesel engine with a hybrid system that integrates high-efficiency electric motors and battery packs. This retrofit aims to reduce harmful emissions, lower noise pollution, improve fuel efficiency, and decrease maintenance costs, providing a greener and more cost-effective alternative for geotechnical drilling operations. The deliverable for this project will be a functional small-scale demonstration model of the drilling rig equipped with the hybrid electric power system, showcasing its operational capabilities and environmental advantages.

Suspension Bath for Severely Burned or Injured Patients

Project number
25052
Organization
Roy Medina - Project Sponsor
Offering
ENGR498-F2024-S2025
Design a suspension bath and a submersion tank to assist in treating severely burned or injured patients. The system is to provide a method of reducing pain and suffering resulting from patient lying in bed and being moved to access areas of the body to be treated. The bath will be designed to permit a patient being submerged for long periods of time to promote healing and provide access to the patient's body for physical treatments, such as debriding. The system's heating will maintain required temperatures and will constantly recycle and filter the bath to maintain proper balance.

The bath should include medicinal components to maintain a sterile environment and to promote healing, the balance of medicinal components to be tested periodically.

The system's recycling system will be provided to detect body wastes using sensors, optical, chemical, etc, to activate extraction devices to divert wastes to external drains.

The system will include a mechanical means of loading and unloading the patient from the submersion tank.

Pyrolysis Oil Refining for Plastic Recycling, Carbon Capture and Disaster Relief

Project number
25051
Organization
PeakView Environmental Solutions
Offering
ENGR498-F2024-S2025
The management of plastic and other hydrocarbon waste is one of the most pressing issues of our civilization. As these often harmful materials break down, they pollute our air, water, and soil. Unsuspecting wildlife often succumbs to this waste due to suffocation, blockage, or entanglement. To alleviate these issues, PeakView Environmental Solutions aims to develop a mobile pyrolysis and oil refining plant that can be shipped to small, underdeveloped islands and areas that have recently been hit by natural disasters and are struggling with the supply of clean drinking water, electricity, and fuel. By utilizing the often abundant organic waste, such as plastic, tires, and plant debris, locals can produce their own biofuel and run power generators for water pumps, filters, and other emergency equipment.

The goal of this project is to develop a functioning oil refining module that can be transported alongside the existing pyrolysis plant. The new module should take the raw pyrolysis oil as input and produce a high-quality diesel-like fuel as output. A significant portion of the project will entail risk analysis, safety implementation, and obtaining authorization—all in a collaborative effort between the university, the student team, and the sponsor.

The project requires chemical knowledge for the refining process, mechanical engineering for the system design, biosystems engineering for the environmental components, and electrical engineering for the sensors and control mechanisms.

Scope: (1) Analyze the pyrolysis oil from the existing prototype and research the process of refining it into a diesel-like fuel on a portable scale. (2) Confirm your understanding with your professors. (3) Verify your system design with the UA staff responsible for overseeing the operation of the plant prototype. (4) Build the mobile oil refinement prototype. Consider off-the-shelf technology first and find customized solutions as needed. (5) Provide chemical, mechanical, and electrical diagrams of the system’s working components and processes. (6) Test the plant for performance, safety, and ease of use, and iterate on previous steps until an optimal design is found. (7) Develop plans (including cost estimates) to turn the system prototype into a compact, turnkey system that can be shipped to a disaster area and operated by a local technician. (8) Present results in a video conference and PowerPoint presentation.

CycleSafe: A Bicycle Handlebar Mounted Automobile Proximity Sensing, Warning, and Reporting Device - Phase 3

Project number
25050
Organization
Rob Dollar Foundation
Offering
ENGR498-F2024-S2025
Every year, over 13,000 cyclists get injured in the United States due to car accidents.
In Arizona, A.R.S 28-275 requires vehicles to maintain a 3 feet distance from cyclists, but there is no enforcement mechanism for this law. CycleSafe aims to provide a safer environment for cyclists by creating a mechanism for the enforcement of A.R.S. 28-275

CycleSafe is an automobile proximity sensing, warning, and reporting device that fits in the left handlebar of a bicycle. When a motor vehicle passes within 3-feet of the CycleSafe an ultrasonic sensor triggers a side-facing flashing amber LED to warn the driver and records a burst of images (12 images per second) from a forward facing camera to capture the license plate. These images are stored on a micro SD within the device for export to a computer. These images can be sent to law-enforcement to track unsafe driving incidents and send warnings to unsafe drivers when permitted by law. Offline image analysis can be used to retrieve the license plate number from the images.

In this 3rd phase of the project, the team will design and test several improvements to the device that will make it smaller and lighter, add additional features, and make it more tightly integrated with the smartphone app.

******This sponsor will not be present at Open House. If interested, please sign up for an interview slot here - https://bit.ly/25044_25050Interviews******

AZ HEAT MEDICINE - Reduce Renal Failure in Arizona - Fly, Measure, Treat

Project number
25049
Organization
ACABI, supported by Craig M. Berge Dean's Fund
Offering
ENGR498-F2024-S2025
Project Goal/Summary: This project will develop a system to rapidly identify and treat Arizonans with heat stress, dehydration, incipient acute renal failure and related systemic consequences, all resulting from excessive heat exposure in Arizona regions/cities - driven and compounded by global warming. This is a community and population project involving rapid identification of heat-stressed individuals via aerial surveillance of exposed municipal areas, focusing on individuals with prolonged outdoor exposure and the unsheltered. Sun and radiant heat exposure from concrete/roadways leads to overheating and excessive human fluid loss, resulting in acute kidney injury (prerenal azotemia) and related heat-disorders. The designed system will include: 1. a drone-based surveillance system for fly over identification of affected individuals, 2. a drop-down/parachutable or stationary point-of-care sensor system – to measure urinary and salivary status for dehydration assessment, and 3. a treatment means for dispatch and deployment of fluids for rehydration. Successful development of this system will reduce morbidity for thousands of people and save lives.

Requirements: Step 1: Background research. Develop understanding of thermal effects on the kidney, body, and basics of acute renal failure. Determine best methods of measuring specific gravity and osmolarity of urine and saliva. Research technical aspects of aerial temperature determination, Flir cameras, refractometers and osmometers, and telemetry to be utilized in the project. Step 2: Design an aerial drone system with visual and temperature identification means, with telemetry back to a command-control heads-up display unit. Step 3: Develop a small, deployable – parachutable or stationary, point-of-care refractometer/osmometer with digital capability to measure urine or salivary specific gravity and osmolarity. System will have digital relay back to central command control. Step 4: Modify drone of step 1 and develop an accompanying Uber or Lyft or robot delivery means, to deploy electrolyte solutions to the affected individual at geolocation. Step 5: Integrated command control will have reporting means for serial data collection, and an AI prediction module inputting weather information to identify most likely regions needing next drone focus.

Skills Necessary: Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering Computer Programming, Machine Learning. Knowledge of sensors, telemetry/communication, coding.

Additional Resources: Slepian Lab for prototyping and wet testing. Friday afternoon mentoring sessions (for all Kidney/ACABI teams) on a rotating pre-scheduled basis will be in place to provide adequate guidance.

Golf Putting Robot

Project number
25048
Organization
Raytheon Technologies
Offering
ENGR498-F2024-S2025
Need:
Golf robot capable of understanding a dynamic outdoor environment, determining an optimal solution, and beating a human at golf.


Scope:
Create a golf robot capable of reliably getting the ball in the cup with no more than two putts from anywhere on the green on a real-world golf course.

Requirements
• Get the ball in the cup in two putts from anywhere on a regulation green
o Potentially challenge a member of the U of A golf team to a putting competition
• Robot must function in an outdoor environment – operate in normal golf conditions
• Capable of assessing each shot – locate cup, determine break – and execute the optimal solution
• Understand present human kinesthetics when putting
o What is the optimal solution as a human?
o How can a robot improve on this approach?
• Open-source design – share the engineering design process with all

3D Printing Temperature/Humidity Control Filament

Project number
25047
Organization
Raytheon Technologies
Offering
ENGR498-F2024-S2025
NEED: The Additive Manufacturing (3D printing) Lab in the Raytheon Bike Shop produces thousands of parts a year of varying material and scope. Most of the filament used for our printers have different temperature and humidity sensitivities. By being able to quickly and effectively store, control temperature/humidity, and prep multiple different filament types we will be able to save materials and improve lead times for customer prints. By designing and building a multiple compartment temperature/humidity chamber we can accommodate multiple different filament types.

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