STEM Awareness / Education

A one or two sentence description of your project.

Creating a Secondary Mirror Support System (SMSS) for a secondary mirror in a space telescope.

How can we improve knowledge distillation from large unstructured data?

VPNs are increasingly promoted as a privacy-enhancing technology and a solution to protecting users’ privacy from surveillance and cyber attacks.1 While most VPN protocols encrypt users’ browsing traffic, the research community has repeatedly demonstrated that encryption algorithms need not be broken for malicious agents with knowledge of users’ encrypted traffic to fingerprint the websites they visit. We investigate whether advancements in VPN technologies in the last two decades make VPNs harder to fingerprint.

In this study, we investigate the capabilities and inherent biases of advanced large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 in the context of debate evaluation.

This practitioner paper describes a new, multi-locality benchmark program for testing memory access latency and using it to study recent AMD machines equipped with 3D vertical cache(V-Cache) that can be over 1 GiB in total size on a single node.

In this paper, we introduce the causal data lake discovery problem and propose a large language model(LLM)-based framework to discover potential pairwise causal links between columns from different tables.

This thesis delves into MO-MAB algorithms, examining their broad applications and potential to enhance HPO.

This project aims to build and design a continuous concentration measurement system for a low-volatile monomer in the vapor phase.

Team Members Advisor Michael Giacomelli Problem Statement This project is aimed at designing a device that allows for accurate and repeatable calibration of an optical probe that will be used…

A device that allows surgeons to adjust the declination angle of their loupes to improve posture during long operations.

Ticklers prevent heel formation from occurring and allow for most, if not all, material to drain through the tank. The goal of this project is to design a system to test different tickler impeller configurations to optimize slurry draining performance.

The purpose of this project was to identify and optimize factors for a continuous reactor that can be used to prepare aryl amines from nitro arenes using an acid/proton donor system and a heterogeneous palladium catalyst.

This project explores the effects of an iodine based etchant on the etch rates of both electroplated and sputtered gold coated silicon wafers.

Team Stonefish researched novel treatments for inhibiting post-canning refermentation in sweetened beer, which can cause profit loss and recalls.

Investigating the use of biochar made from woody yard waste stored in the Waste Management landfill in Fairport, NY as a PFAS removal treatment for the landfill leachate

In order to decrease costs of NoWave’s cannabis extraction process, methods were investigated to increase yield and allow for more reuse of the ethanol

This project explores the most effective foam fractionation system for PFAS removal from landfill leachate.

Antony Georgiadis Mentors Professor James Fienup and Joseph Tang Abstract Wavefront sensing via phase retrieval algorithms are critical to enabling the use of large aperture systems on the ground and…

Tatsunosuke Hanano Mentor Professor Robert Boyd Abstract Light with structured polarization is called polarization structured beams, and they have gotten attention because of their ability to process more information per…

Kaleigh Rook Mentors Dr. Andrew Berger and Dr. Samantha Romanick “Everything you make returns to the Earth as either food or poison.” Abstract Microplastics have permeated every corner of our…

The purpose of this project is to create a computational algorithm capable of taking an aberrated image and correct it to a sharp high contrast image. We used optical design…

Team Customer Dr. Daniel Brooks – Optimax Systems Inc. Mentor Dr. Aaron Bauer – Institute of Optics Abstract The goal of this design project was to demonstrate the capabilities of…

The META360 project seeks to enhance the current Circle Optics 360º field-of-view stitch-free camera system using novel meta-optics technology. Using Synopsys’ new MetaOptic Designer software, we explore the use of meta-optics in a hybrid lens design.

Optical Design of a Compact Projector Lens for a Portable Display Project Vision The desired product is a portable display consisting of a collapsible screen and a compact projector with…

Team Mentor Professor Greg Schmidt Abstract Advanced Growing Resources (AGR), is pioneering targeting systems that send mass pesticide blanketing towards obsolescence. The targeting system that was designed during this project…

DCORE4 Team Mentors Govind P. Agrawal, Julie Bentley, Jacob Roccabruno Abstract The optical senior design class at the University of Rochester strives to tackle engineering problems through engineering processes and…

Team Mentor Brandon Zimmerman Abstract The Clear Eye Exam allows for users to take an eye exam from their home and obtain an eye prescription. This lets people have an…

This senior design-driven project creates accurate Zemax ray-tracing models of the human eye to evaluate diffractive-refractive hybrid contact lenses for correcting wavefront error and chromatic aberration. The eventual goal is to apply the technology to school-aged children to prevent the progression of myopia development.

Mission Statement The goal of our project is to create a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) telescope that provides an engaging and educational experience for kids. The telescope will come fully disassembled, empowering…

The Light Avoidance Team developed a device that delivers customizable light stimuli to mice and analyzes their resulting behavior for use in vision research.

Team Customer The Goal Customer Scenario Key Design Decisions System Design  Prototype Electrical Schematics Customer Feedbacks and Steps Moving Forward LSI Device Feedback: Ways LSI can further develop the product:…

Team WorkStress Customer Adam Christopher Dziorny, M.D., Ph.D., Physician Scientist, University of Rochester Medical Center Project Advisor Edmund C. Lalor, Ph.D. , Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Rochester Project…

Meet the Team Background Wedge Deformities: Also known as the Wedge Effect. Characterized by the distraction of the proximal femur and lateralization of medullary nails within the femur. ​ ​ Why is it…

Team Mentor Greg Gdowski, Martin Gira, and Amy Lerner Abstract Left ventricular assist (LVAD) devices are implanted in patients with heart failure to assist with pumping blood through the body.…

Our Team Background Scoliosis is an abnormal lateral curvature and rotation of the spine. There is a 2-3% prevalence worldwide. In Ghana, 138000 to 207000 adolescents may be affected by using this statistic. Problem In…

Pediatric Surgical Group Pediatric Expansive Hernia Repair – A CDH Treatment Abdullah Abuomar, Marianna Aviles Jubis, John Moyer, & Terra Spurgeon Table of Contents Biodesign Need Statement Disease State Fundamentals…

Team Testing Product Design We envision our final product to be a reusable medical grade, bone conduction headset. This headset will feature a single-use disposable coverings that prevent contamination between…

A device to simplify the aortic valve attachment process during AVR surgeries.

Team & Specialty: We are Hemorrhage Heroes, one of the two teams focused on neurosurgical devices within the University of Rochester CMTI program. Our team is composed of Zachary Muench…

Team Abdalrahman Almallahi Timmarie Gallagher Maysoon Harunani Phuong Le Rosemary MacLean Ellie Richard Project Supervisor Regine Choe, Ph.D. Customer Nicole Wilson, Ph.D, M.D. Paul Kupicha Background Information Problem Statement The…

We present TSUBASA, an algorithm for efficiently computing the exact pair-wise time-series correlation based on Pearson’s correlation.

We present findings of a project that studies word meaning changes over time.

An alternative solution design for Laser-Plasma Simulation Environment (LPSE).

Team Members Ahmed Abdalla Ihab Youssef Lingyun Huang Samantha Dinhofer aabdalla@u.rochester.edu iyousse2@u.rochester.edu lhuang21@u.rochester.edu sdinhofe@u.rochester.edu Mentors Christopher Muir, Chris Pratt, Mike Pomerantz, Jim Alkins Problem Description Normal transportation can be dirty…

The hemiblock spacer is a novel surgical device designed to expand the knee joint during total knee replacements, allowing for easy access to the back of the knee to facilitate excess cement removal.

Increase Accessibility to Healthcare CelluCov aims to provide sustainable solutions that are accessible to everyone, without sacrificing quality or performance of the device. While eco-friendlier manufacturing processes are often more…

This study proposes a semi-supervised method for obtaining arousal-valence annotations of a speech corpus when only discrete emotion category information is available.

To avoid the cost of join and union, given a set of joins, we study the problem of obtaining a random sample from the union of joins without performing the full join and union.

Team Team Member Major Amanda Pignataro B.S. in Data Science Avery Girksy B.S. in Data Science Ryan Hilton B.S. in Data Science Vaarya Srivastava B.S. in Data Science Mentor Prof.…

Our project is to aid in the development of a pickleball analytics platform by improving ball detection and tracking. The baseline model used is a TrackNetV2 (Sun et. al. 2020) model trained on badminton, and the purpose of this project is to adapt the model by using transfer learning techniques to improve its performance in pickleball.

1. Team 2. Mentor  Georgen Institute for Data Science (GIDS) 3. Sponsor Lisa Altman 4. Abstract Due to the continuously increased demand for Data Science degrees, our school will open…

Magnetic Couple Study collected data and information from heterosexual couples who are of mixed HIV-status and recorded their prevention methods, including condom use, viral load, and new method-PrEP. This project focused on using unsupervised learning algorithms to examine the main predictors associated with protection strategies.

ML Based classification model to detect triage level for patients arriving at trauma centre, and thus allocate appropriate resources. This was achieved using patients’ data from URMC (Department of Paediatrics).

Virufy has created machine learning models that analyze coughs in order to provide a COVID-19 diagnosis. Training these models requires an even balance between COVID-positive and COVID-negative data, but they unfortunately have very little positive data. In order to combat this issue, the team hoped to generate synthetic coughs that closely resemble real coughs.

Team Academic Advisor Prof. Ajay Anand and Prof. Cantay Caliskan Project Sponsor Dr. Erika Ramsdale and the URMC Geriatric Oncology Team Introduction Studies in recent years have shown that cancer…

Team Mentor Professor Ajay Anand Dr. Preston Countryman Sponsor Corning Inc. – Data Science & Intelligence (DSI) Team Abstract Corning wants to develop a deep-time-series model to perform accurate customer-level…

We aimed to create a device that allows acoustic guitarists to produce real-time audio effects, such as reverb and delay, by resonating the body of their guitar with a transducer. Our device would improve upon existing market products by offering higher-qaulity audio processing, more effects and more user-friendly hardware components.

This project combines two instrument and vocal effects, Talkbox and Vocoder, in one guitar pedal unit, making it easy to use and switch between either effect.

Team Mentors Professor Michael Heilemann, Professor Daniel Phinney, Professor Sarah Smith, Tre DiPassio TL;DR We designed a system that includes both hardware and software components to extract speech audio from…

Team Mentor Michael Heilemann, Dan Phinney, Sarah Smith, Tre DiPassio Abstract An Electronic Wind Instrument, or EWI, is a type of wind controller that takes in breath input and outputs…

Team Mentor Professor Mottley and Professor Phinney Abstract Wildfires burn 7 million acres of land in the US every year. We present a read-out integrated circuit (ROIC) designed to be…

Design an interchangeable, fixed offset, fixed gear-ratio eccentric tool spindle for gravity-loaded optical polishing procedures.

This project’s goal was to develop an easily reproducible robot for use in ECE216 for students to learn about motor controllers. The robot was required to be modular, so each wheel has its own module that can be controlled independently and can move/rotate in any direction.

Team Mentor Christopher Muir Project Description The Human Powered Vehicle Competition (HPVC) is an annual competition hosted by ASME where various universities build vehicles to compete in a 2.5-hour endurance…

A robot which navigates between points on campus, delivering packages.

With the MVP Ring, surgeons are able to recreate a patient’s native heart valve anatomy and overall hemodynamic function leading to improved surgical outcomes.

One or two sentence description of the project.

One or two sentence description of the project.

Hemp composites are a sustainable alternative to carbon fiber and fiberglass composites. Our team has developed a manufacturing process and testing procedure to characterize hemp composites.

One or two sentence description of the project.

A process developed by Xerox results in a waste stream of heptane and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The team built and tested a semi-continuous extraction system to separate heptane and PDMS.

One or two sentence description of the project.

This project involved designing, building, and testing the functionality of an adsorption system. The system will be used by the Porosoff Lab to study different sorbents for use in the direct air capture of CO2.

One or two sentence description of the project.

One or two sentence description of the project.

Students can study heterogeneous catalysis reactions with a continuous reactor

One or two sentence description of the project.

Team Yihe Chen Harry Huang Junting Chen Kehan Yu Mentor Cantay Caliskan Abstract Predictive Analytics for Demand Responsive Para- transportation Vision & Goal ● Create a productive schedule for Demand…

This project uses the luminescence of the nighttime sky as a predictive features for economic activity.

This project aims to observe, visualize, and model the trends in which COVID-19 patients at the University of Medical Center were allocated ventilators. Descriptive analyses are performed to investigate the relationships between variables such as but not limited to recovery rate and length of ventilator allocation and gender, race, and age.

This project aims to build a model which detects features such as crosswalks and curb ramps at intersections in the city of Rochester.

Team Qianqian Gu (Project Manager) Wei Wu Chen Yao Hanyang Zhang Mentor Ajay Anand Abstract The Goergen Institute for Data Science (GIDS) masters admission office wants to better understand applicants’…

Team Steven Dai Zachary Mustin Uzoma Ohajekwe Duy Pham Sponsor Vnomics Corporation Matt Mayo Mentor Prof. Ajay Anand Abstract Our task is to predict imminent failures in Diesel Particulate Filters…

Team Xiaoen Ding Jiecheng Gu Sung Beom Park Joseph Smith Mentor Ajay Anand Sponsor Lisa Altman Gretchen Briscoe Abstract The Goergen Institute for Data Science wants to understand the types…

Team Yihan Shao Chuqin Wu Melanie Xue Zihe Zheng Mentor Cantay Çalışkan Abstract The goal of this project is to forecast the pest pressure of Grape Powdery Mildew at a…

This project investigates the associations between geriatric assessment based features and relative dose intensity of chemotherapy. It is at the first few phases of Wilmot Cancer Institute’s Ger Oncology Research team at University of Rochester Medical Center. The team refined the data preprocessing pipeline, built predictive models and employed feature selection on the dataset, providing insightful suggestions for future work in cancer studies.

Cross Beam Energy Transfer (CBET) is a simulation that models how intersecting laser beams share energy.

A one or two sentence description of your project.

Creating a Secondary Mirror Support System (SMSS) for a secondary mirror in a space telescope.

How can we improve knowledge distillation from large unstructured data?

VPNs are increasingly promoted as a privacy-enhancing technology and a solution to protecting users’ privacy from surveillance and cyber attacks.1 While most VPN protocols encrypt users’ browsing traffic, the research community has repeatedly demonstrated that encryption algorithms need not be broken for malicious agents with knowledge of users’ encrypted traffic to fingerprint the websites they visit. We investigate whether advancements in VPN technologies in the last two decades make VPNs harder to fingerprint.

In this study, we investigate the capabilities and inherent biases of advanced large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 in the context of debate evaluation.

This practitioner paper describes a new, multi-locality benchmark program for testing memory access latency and using it to study recent AMD machines equipped with 3D vertical cache(V-Cache) that can be over 1 GiB in total size on a single node.

In this paper, we introduce the causal data lake discovery problem and propose a large language model(LLM)-based framework to discover potential pairwise causal links between columns from different tables.

This thesis delves into MO-MAB algorithms, examining their broad applications and potential to enhance HPO.

This project aims to build and design a continuous concentration measurement system for a low-volatile monomer in the vapor phase.

Team Members Advisor Michael Giacomelli Problem Statement This project is aimed at designing a device that allows for accurate and repeatable calibration of an optical probe that will be used…

A device that allows surgeons to adjust the declination angle of their loupes to improve posture during long operations.

Ticklers prevent heel formation from occurring and allow for most, if not all, material to drain through the tank. The goal of this project is to design a system to test different tickler impeller configurations to optimize slurry draining performance.

The purpose of this project was to identify and optimize factors for a continuous reactor that can be used to prepare aryl amines from nitro arenes using an acid/proton donor system and a heterogeneous palladium catalyst.

This project explores the effects of an iodine based etchant on the etch rates of both electroplated and sputtered gold coated silicon wafers.

Team Stonefish researched novel treatments for inhibiting post-canning refermentation in sweetened beer, which can cause profit loss and recalls.

Investigating the use of biochar made from woody yard waste stored in the Waste Management landfill in Fairport, NY as a PFAS removal treatment for the landfill leachate

In order to decrease costs of NoWave’s cannabis extraction process, methods were investigated to increase yield and allow for more reuse of the ethanol

This project explores the most effective foam fractionation system for PFAS removal from landfill leachate.

Antony Georgiadis Mentors Professor James Fienup and Joseph Tang Abstract Wavefront sensing via phase retrieval algorithms are critical to enabling the use of large aperture systems on the ground and…

Tatsunosuke Hanano Mentor Professor Robert Boyd Abstract Light with structured polarization is called polarization structured beams, and they have gotten attention because of their ability to process more information per…

Kaleigh Rook Mentors Dr. Andrew Berger and Dr. Samantha Romanick “Everything you make returns to the Earth as either food or poison.” Abstract Microplastics have permeated every corner of our…

The purpose of this project is to create a computational algorithm capable of taking an aberrated image and correct it to a sharp high contrast image. We used optical design…

Team Customer Dr. Daniel Brooks – Optimax Systems Inc. Mentor Dr. Aaron Bauer – Institute of Optics Abstract The goal of this design project was to demonstrate the capabilities of…

The META360 project seeks to enhance the current Circle Optics 360º field-of-view stitch-free camera system using novel meta-optics technology. Using Synopsys’ new MetaOptic Designer software, we explore the use of meta-optics in a hybrid lens design.

Optical Design of a Compact Projector Lens for a Portable Display Project Vision The desired product is a portable display consisting of a collapsible screen and a compact projector with…

Team Mentor Professor Greg Schmidt Abstract Advanced Growing Resources (AGR), is pioneering targeting systems that send mass pesticide blanketing towards obsolescence. The targeting system that was designed during this project…

DCORE4 Team Mentors Govind P. Agrawal, Julie Bentley, Jacob Roccabruno Abstract The optical senior design class at the University of Rochester strives to tackle engineering problems through engineering processes and…

Team Mentor Brandon Zimmerman Abstract The Clear Eye Exam allows for users to take an eye exam from their home and obtain an eye prescription. This lets people have an…

This senior design-driven project creates accurate Zemax ray-tracing models of the human eye to evaluate diffractive-refractive hybrid contact lenses for correcting wavefront error and chromatic aberration. The eventual goal is to apply the technology to school-aged children to prevent the progression of myopia development.

Mission Statement The goal of our project is to create a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) telescope that provides an engaging and educational experience for kids. The telescope will come fully disassembled, empowering…

The Light Avoidance Team developed a device that delivers customizable light stimuli to mice and analyzes their resulting behavior for use in vision research.

Team Customer The Goal Customer Scenario Key Design Decisions System Design  Prototype Electrical Schematics Customer Feedbacks and Steps Moving Forward LSI Device Feedback: Ways LSI can further develop the product:…

Team WorkStress Customer Adam Christopher Dziorny, M.D., Ph.D., Physician Scientist, University of Rochester Medical Center Project Advisor Edmund C. Lalor, Ph.D. , Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Rochester Project…

Meet the Team Background Wedge Deformities: Also known as the Wedge Effect. Characterized by the distraction of the proximal femur and lateralization of medullary nails within the femur. ​ ​ Why is it…

Team Mentor Greg Gdowski, Martin Gira, and Amy Lerner Abstract Left ventricular assist (LVAD) devices are implanted in patients with heart failure to assist with pumping blood through the body.…

Our Team Background Scoliosis is an abnormal lateral curvature and rotation of the spine. There is a 2-3% prevalence worldwide. In Ghana, 138000 to 207000 adolescents may be affected by using this statistic. Problem In…

Pediatric Surgical Group Pediatric Expansive Hernia Repair – A CDH Treatment Abdullah Abuomar, Marianna Aviles Jubis, John Moyer, & Terra Spurgeon Table of Contents Biodesign Need Statement Disease State Fundamentals…

Team Testing Product Design We envision our final product to be a reusable medical grade, bone conduction headset. This headset will feature a single-use disposable coverings that prevent contamination between…

A device to simplify the aortic valve attachment process during AVR surgeries.

Team & Specialty: We are Hemorrhage Heroes, one of the two teams focused on neurosurgical devices within the University of Rochester CMTI program. Our team is composed of Zachary Muench…

Team Abdalrahman Almallahi Timmarie Gallagher Maysoon Harunani Phuong Le Rosemary MacLean Ellie Richard Project Supervisor Regine Choe, Ph.D. Customer Nicole Wilson, Ph.D, M.D. Paul Kupicha Background Information Problem Statement The…

We present TSUBASA, an algorithm for efficiently computing the exact pair-wise time-series correlation based on Pearson’s correlation.

We present findings of a project that studies word meaning changes over time.

An alternative solution design for Laser-Plasma Simulation Environment (LPSE).

Team Members Ahmed Abdalla Ihab Youssef Lingyun Huang Samantha Dinhofer aabdalla@u.rochester.edu iyousse2@u.rochester.edu lhuang21@u.rochester.edu sdinhofe@u.rochester.edu Mentors Christopher Muir, Chris Pratt, Mike Pomerantz, Jim Alkins Problem Description Normal transportation can be dirty…

The hemiblock spacer is a novel surgical device designed to expand the knee joint during total knee replacements, allowing for easy access to the back of the knee to facilitate excess cement removal.

Increase Accessibility to Healthcare CelluCov aims to provide sustainable solutions that are accessible to everyone, without sacrificing quality or performance of the device. While eco-friendlier manufacturing processes are often more…

This study proposes a semi-supervised method for obtaining arousal-valence annotations of a speech corpus when only discrete emotion category information is available.

To avoid the cost of join and union, given a set of joins, we study the problem of obtaining a random sample from the union of joins without performing the full join and union.

Team Team Member Major Amanda Pignataro B.S. in Data Science Avery Girksy B.S. in Data Science Ryan Hilton B.S. in Data Science Vaarya Srivastava B.S. in Data Science Mentor Prof.…

Our project is to aid in the development of a pickleball analytics platform by improving ball detection and tracking. The baseline model used is a TrackNetV2 (Sun et. al. 2020) model trained on badminton, and the purpose of this project is to adapt the model by using transfer learning techniques to improve its performance in pickleball.

1. Team 2. Mentor  Georgen Institute for Data Science (GIDS) 3. Sponsor Lisa Altman 4. Abstract Due to the continuously increased demand for Data Science degrees, our school will open…

Magnetic Couple Study collected data and information from heterosexual couples who are of mixed HIV-status and recorded their prevention methods, including condom use, viral load, and new method-PrEP. This project focused on using unsupervised learning algorithms to examine the main predictors associated with protection strategies.

ML Based classification model to detect triage level for patients arriving at trauma centre, and thus allocate appropriate resources. This was achieved using patients’ data from URMC (Department of Paediatrics).

Virufy has created machine learning models that analyze coughs in order to provide a COVID-19 diagnosis. Training these models requires an even balance between COVID-positive and COVID-negative data, but they unfortunately have very little positive data. In order to combat this issue, the team hoped to generate synthetic coughs that closely resemble real coughs.

Team Academic Advisor Prof. Ajay Anand and Prof. Cantay Caliskan Project Sponsor Dr. Erika Ramsdale and the URMC Geriatric Oncology Team Introduction Studies in recent years have shown that cancer…

Team Mentor Professor Ajay Anand Dr. Preston Countryman Sponsor Corning Inc. – Data Science & Intelligence (DSI) Team Abstract Corning wants to develop a deep-time-series model to perform accurate customer-level…

We aimed to create a device that allows acoustic guitarists to produce real-time audio effects, such as reverb and delay, by resonating the body of their guitar with a transducer. Our device would improve upon existing market products by offering higher-qaulity audio processing, more effects and more user-friendly hardware components.

This project combines two instrument and vocal effects, Talkbox and Vocoder, in one guitar pedal unit, making it easy to use and switch between either effect.

Team Mentors Professor Michael Heilemann, Professor Daniel Phinney, Professor Sarah Smith, Tre DiPassio TL;DR We designed a system that includes both hardware and software components to extract speech audio from…

Team Mentor Michael Heilemann, Dan Phinney, Sarah Smith, Tre DiPassio Abstract An Electronic Wind Instrument, or EWI, is a type of wind controller that takes in breath input and outputs…

Team Mentor Professor Mottley and Professor Phinney Abstract Wildfires burn 7 million acres of land in the US every year. We present a read-out integrated circuit (ROIC) designed to be…

Design an interchangeable, fixed offset, fixed gear-ratio eccentric tool spindle for gravity-loaded optical polishing procedures.

This project’s goal was to develop an easily reproducible robot for use in ECE216 for students to learn about motor controllers. The robot was required to be modular, so each wheel has its own module that can be controlled independently and can move/rotate in any direction.

Team Mentor Christopher Muir Project Description The Human Powered Vehicle Competition (HPVC) is an annual competition hosted by ASME where various universities build vehicles to compete in a 2.5-hour endurance…

A robot which navigates between points on campus, delivering packages.

With the MVP Ring, surgeons are able to recreate a patient’s native heart valve anatomy and overall hemodynamic function leading to improved surgical outcomes.

One or two sentence description of the project.

One or two sentence description of the project.

Hemp composites are a sustainable alternative to carbon fiber and fiberglass composites. Our team has developed a manufacturing process and testing procedure to characterize hemp composites.

One or two sentence description of the project.

A process developed by Xerox results in a waste stream of heptane and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The team built and tested a semi-continuous extraction system to separate heptane and PDMS.

One or two sentence description of the project.

This project involved designing, building, and testing the functionality of an adsorption system. The system will be used by the Porosoff Lab to study different sorbents for use in the direct air capture of CO2.

One or two sentence description of the project.

One or two sentence description of the project.

Students can study heterogeneous catalysis reactions with a continuous reactor

One or two sentence description of the project.

Team Yihe Chen Harry Huang Junting Chen Kehan Yu Mentor Cantay Caliskan Abstract Predictive Analytics for Demand Responsive Para- transportation Vision & Goal ● Create a productive schedule for Demand…

This project uses the luminescence of the nighttime sky as a predictive features for economic activity.

This project aims to observe, visualize, and model the trends in which COVID-19 patients at the University of Medical Center were allocated ventilators. Descriptive analyses are performed to investigate the relationships between variables such as but not limited to recovery rate and length of ventilator allocation and gender, race, and age.

This project aims to build a model which detects features such as crosswalks and curb ramps at intersections in the city of Rochester.

Team Qianqian Gu (Project Manager) Wei Wu Chen Yao Hanyang Zhang Mentor Ajay Anand Abstract The Goergen Institute for Data Science (GIDS) masters admission office wants to better understand applicants’…

Team Steven Dai Zachary Mustin Uzoma Ohajekwe Duy Pham Sponsor Vnomics Corporation Matt Mayo Mentor Prof. Ajay Anand Abstract Our task is to predict imminent failures in Diesel Particulate Filters…

Team Xiaoen Ding Jiecheng Gu Sung Beom Park Joseph Smith Mentor Ajay Anand Sponsor Lisa Altman Gretchen Briscoe Abstract The Goergen Institute for Data Science wants to understand the types…

Team Yihan Shao Chuqin Wu Melanie Xue Zihe Zheng Mentor Cantay Çalışkan Abstract The goal of this project is to forecast the pest pressure of Grape Powdery Mildew at a…

This project investigates the associations between geriatric assessment based features and relative dose intensity of chemotherapy. It is at the first few phases of Wilmot Cancer Institute’s Ger Oncology Research team at University of Rochester Medical Center. The team refined the data preprocessing pipeline, built predictive models and employed feature selection on the dataset, providing insightful suggestions for future work in cancer studies.

Cross Beam Energy Transfer (CBET) is a simulation that models how intersecting laser beams share energy.

A translation validation tool for a small compiler backend called QBE. The tool can identify invalid intermediate language transformations and optimizations.

Multithreading introduces complications around synchronizing different threads with shared memory spaces.

A buffered variant of the Pronto persistence framework that provides a 1.26x to x6.77x times performance increase with potential data loss contained within 1ms.

The Gavett Hall Recording Studio’s signature reverb is well known amongst AME students. Although this reverb is embraced by many, some wish for more control in post production. The aim of this project was to create a modular solution capable of treating the sound with the option of leaving it intact.

Team Benjamin Kevelson Jun Qiu Julia Weinstock Zilin Zeng Mentors Mike Heilemann, Sarah Smith, and Dan Phinney   Abstract Flat panel technology has been an emerging field of research at…

Using flat-panel speaker technology, our group seeks to address these problems by designing a low cost and lightweight alternative, that provides the same dynamic tone loved by all, with scalable power to fit all needs.

The project’s development is around making pitch detuning, velocity variations, and time-shifting to create dequantization in real-time and non-real-time algorithms, both with and without the help of Machine Learning.

We have built an audio interface entirely from scratch. We designed the interface to be efficient, easy-to-use, and beneficial specifically for the user’s creative workflow.

An analog circuit designed to quickly and accurately detect jams in high-speed scanners.

Designing a Near Zero-Leak & Low-Friction Rotary Coolant Valve for EV Applications

DetectIV is for anesthesiologists to detect unwanted infiltration and extravasation from delivery of intravenous fluids to reduce incidence of effects such as pain, swelling and risk of necrosis during the intraoperative period.

Our mission is to significantly reduce post-surgical SAVR life-threatening complications caused by calcium debris by introducing the industry’s first embolic protection device for SAVR procedures.

Bubble Trouble is the “Patient’s Companion”, the industry’s first and only medical device company that aims to eliminate bubbles in all surgical procedures to aid healthcare professionals prepare contrast agents faster, safer and simpler.

A remotely operated camera to increase the accessibility of wound healing teleconsultations.

Revolutionizing minimally invasive surgeries by targeting 70% of all major complications

The Screw Insertion Trajectory Kit is an assistive tracking system that provides real-time feedback for the screw trajectory insertion process unlike the current free-hand method or existing technologies that are not specifically designed for plates and screws open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) surgical procedures.

A solar panel system which utilizes sensors to position the system in a way to track the sun.

A one or two sentence description of your project.

A one or two sentence description of your project.

all-TErrain Rolling Robot using Autonomy

Underwater distress signal detector

A helmet that can guide visually impaired people to walk freely and have a vague image of their surroundings using stereo sound.

A launcher that locks on to a pre-defined target and fires a ball.

A one or two sentence description of your project.

A Driver Board for AGR’s Spectre

An exhibit for the Rochester Museum and Science Center that aims to expose the viewers to the concept of vibrations in an engaging and interactive manner.

Gas-powered automobiles negatively impact the earth because of pollution that is exhausted from their engines. This project implements a cheap, efficient, and electric-powered cart design to raise awareness on the power of efficient electric vehicles. 

Design and fabricate a wooden cart powered solely by a hand drill

Teams need to find a way to reduce the drag caused by air slows on the vehicle with their design. The point of this project was to reduce the drag coefficient and the weight of the car with panels made of lighter and stronger materials.

A fun & friendly children cart for in-hospital transport.

A one or two sentence description of your project.

A mechanical drum player to provide handicapped children the ability to play the drums.

This project aims to manufacture a device capable of rapidly cycling phase change materials through a hot and a cold temperature cycle in order to determine their long term suitability for use in thermal batteries.

This is an interdisciplinary project between ECE and ME students. The teams designed and manufactured a rolling robot that uses linear actuators to move and navigate flat environments.

The Strong Team created a rotational table top attachment to allow the radiology team at Strong Memorial Hospital to better preform full body irradiation therapy to patients.

Physical experimentation is crucial to grasping a deeper understanding of fluid dynamics. Our team is working to provide the Mechanical Engineering department a solution via designing, analyzing, and building a transportable tow tank structure for students’ use.

A one or two sentence description of your project.

Our team focuses on automating the mounting process of histology and our device would work together with microtome.

The Baxter Smart room team has designed a prototype to address smart infusion pump related problems that harm the patient experience in hospitals.

A one or two sentence description of your project.

Our device is designed to stabilize needle entry and advancement at set angles during CT-guided procedures.

The Smart Hip Broaching System is a device intended to collect data on impaction force and rotational movements during the broaching process in total hip arthroplasty (THA). The system will provide live feedback of this data and guide the orthopedic surgeon toward optimal placement of the femoral stem during surgery.

The JungleCup is a small, portable, and weather-proof device that can operate in various Costa Rican environments that attracts and traps mosquitoes to determine the prevalence of dengue virus.

Our project is to design an alternative device or system that removes orthopedic casts and is less scary than the current cast saw device.

Our project aims to design an improved neonatal CPAP mask that reduces the amount of pressure exerted on the neonate’s delicate skin and detects air leakage at the mask-neonate interface.

A device aiming to prevent peripheral nerve damage during surgery and simplify operating room procedures.

A device to improve the quality of life of individuals suffering from neurogenic bowel.

Our device uses accelerometers to detect unassisted bed-exit motion to prevent falls in hospitals.

Our team is focusing on creating a tamper-evident device that will protect the access port of all vascular access. Our device is also meant to reduce central line bloodstream infections (CLABSI) associated with intentional and unintentional tampering.

Investigation and analysis of creating mirror fields to deflect the primary electron beam with charged materials. Electron mirrors produce a fisheye view of the interior of the SEM sample chamber.

Improving closed-loop wavefront correction speed for primate retinal imaging.

Probability distributions of work and entropy of a qubit engine powered by simultaneous weak quantum measurements.

In this thesis, we numerically and analytically analyzed the superposition of multiple paraxial plane waves and discovered the pattern of such superpositions composing FP fields.

Improving silicon photomultiplier bandwidth for fast, low-signal applications.

Determining where best to locate estimate phase screens when correcting volume turbulence through post-processing

Two-Color Nonlocal Aberration Cancellation is one of the many exciting applications of quantum entanglement. In this experiment we create position-momentum entangled photons via SPDC.

We designed an optical system for a NASA ROSES proposal. The system would be housed within a CubeSat and study Zodiacal light.

The simulation will model the output characteristics as light travels through the fiber, giving a rare look at a otherwise inaccessible areas of the fiber.

Our goal is to use existing tools and our optical knowledge to build a simulation tool that carries out a rigorous optical analysis and simulates the imaging of a satellite at a range of distances, attitudes, and illumination angles.

Have you heard of an AR coating without actually coating any materials while working for a wide bandwidth from UV to IR? That is the nanostructure coating.

We designed an interactive and educational imaging system. The guest will be able to project an image onto a screen.

Team Rachel Chan Zihao Li Sinabu Pumulo Mentor Brandon Zimmerman Abstract The Clear Eye Test is a virtual eye prescription platform that measures refractive error of the eye with a…

Venturing into the fully reflective design space to find a wide angle telescopic design that is parallax corrected so that they can be tiled to capture a much higher field of view.

A novel surgical caliper to measure the width of the facet joint during a laminectomy.

The Portico Laminoplasty Fixation System allows surgeons to perform open-door laminoplasty using only one fastener.

An improved training model for endoscopic saphenous vein harvesting.​

A method to capture calcium debris in order to limit stroke incidence.

A minimally invasive instrument designed to increase fusion rates in percutaneous spinal fusions.

A device to collect an adequately sized bone biopsy sample on the first try.

Mesh deployment device used during laparoscopic procedures to prevent hernia

Successfully built autoencoder models with ML Flow and Keras to predict truck failures given sensor data for a fuel optimization startup called Vnomics. The model is optimized by comprehensive time series feature engineering with TS Fresh to achieve a high recall score of 56% on unseen data.

Several problems are being addressed with the project at hand. The main one, however, is a heavily discussed and often times argued about problem: global warming. As of 2019, there are over 276 million vehicles registered in the United States alone. Those carbon emissions add up quickly. If people want to increase the longevity of the earth and allow it to continue long enough to support their kids and grandkids, then it might be time to make a change. This change comes in the form of renewable resources and renewable energy, and that is exactly what the drill powered cart team plans to show throughout the project.

A wireless Video Oculography system with two cameras to efficiently and accurately diagnose vestibular disorders

A device to detect urinary incontinence due to loss of bladder control.

A new mechanism for patient transfers that will minimize the prevalence of back injuries in nurses during lateral patient transfers, while sustaining the safety of the patients.

A creative device to protect medical professional from radiation with females physiques in mind

A surgical simulator with realistic sensory feedback for total knee replacement surgery training.

A cervical orthotic for patients experiencing head drop due to neuromuscular diseases, such as ALS. The brace will focus on support, comfort, and controlled motion.

Creating an affordable, accessible, and effective home exercise device to target chronic knee pain.

To design a cassette for a cost effective and fast HIV viral load assay to increase testing accessibility in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa where HIV rates are highly prevalent.

A benchtop inline analyzer to measure the concentration of urea in spent dialysate.

A high-resolution fluid deposition system for use with Waveguide-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy sensors.

An integrated image processing system to track a surgical catheter in occluded surgical views.

An adaptor device able to attach to a ventilation/anesthesia mask to improve gaseous medication delivery to patients with facial hair.

A new wireless controller for the Action Trackchair to allow for use by a caregiver of those unable to control the chair on their own.

The City of Rochester wants to understand if physical proximity to a convenience store or liquor store affects the likelihood of different types of part 1 crimes.

The Geriatric Oncology Research Team at URMC wants to better understand chemotherapy tolerability in vulnerable older adults.

The goal of the project was to identify upsell opportunities for Paychex’s 401(k) service products to their existing clients.

Rochester Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative (RMAPI) launched a new survey to better understand the impact of COVID- 19 on community member’s income and basic needs as well as what community members need to be safe and financially secure. The goal of the project was to analyze the survey and responses to inform United Way which kind of assistance needs to be provided, and what features of living necessities are more important for the respondents.

Identify scenarios where DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter) failure is likely to happen so that the trucking customer can be alerted in advance to avoid costly roadside breakdowns.

The main objective is to identify the maximum water flow tolerance of the Moses-Saunders Dam in order not to exceed the permissible limits of Lake St. Louis.

The project supported the goal of UR Utilities and Energy Management deparment to improve the efficiency of chilled water production through predictive modeling

The goal of the project was to explore public perception on COVID-19 vaccine by analyzing social media platform data (Twitter).

The project aim was: 1) Understand how the degree of mental health issues changed over time and space during COVID-19; 2) Find out what topics are people concerned about, and 3) Infer what group of people are more likely to have mental health issues.

To spur museum membership growth, encourage donations from members, and increase overall museum revenue

Designing a Hadamard gate on an integrated Silicon photonic chip

Jonathan Musgrave Advisor: Dr. Jake Bromage Optical Parametric Chirp Pulse Amplification (OPCPA) is an intensely researched topic and has gained a lot of traction in the past 25 years for…

Investigating indistinguishable single-photon sources in the visible range.

Exploring mechanical solutions to reduce the effects of turbulence on the Zygo Verifire™ interferometer

The solar steam turbine is a design that uses a femtosecond laser-processed superwicking metal sheet to generate electricity via steam generation. Team Thermo wishes to thank the following for their…

The Virtual Optics Suitcase makes engaging optics demonstrations accessible, encouraging careers in STEM.

An indoor lighting system designed to simulate the sun.

The Hybrid Endoscope/Microscope project is a senior design project that aims to design and build a system that combines the endoscope’s view and the microscope’s view during ENT surgery.

Development of a telehealth platform that provides digital optical prescriptions, making high quality vision accessible to everyone.

A 360° tessellated, parallax-reduced, cinema camera system.

The Nanostructure AR coating project aims to Investigate and model nanostructure AR coatings on OptiLayer and OptiRE software.

A smart water dispenser system able to dispense drinking water to the user while keeping track of daily intake amounts.

Why not take a virtual trip through the eyes of a robot that uses a camera and displays it to the user’s VR headset. VIRTua Bot allows you to do just that with your android smartphone.

Make a low cost system to measure mini-scale object displacement.

Stay motivated to keep up with your fitness goals by taking care of a virtual pet!

This system is a cheaper alternative option to chemical water treatment meant to sterilize drinking water with UV-C light by controlling water flow in order to achieve proper irradiation time.

Using the interactive detection robot, the user will be able to wirelessly control the device and visually see its surroundings using the camera module. The RPLidar enables a 360° view of the robot’s environment.

Retrofitting a forklift with an open-source autonomous-warehousing system.

An automated hydroponic plant growth system that is monitored online by a user

The surveying altimeter is a cheap, portable, and easy-to-use method of determining the relative height differences between points of interest.

Creating an accurate SLAM estimation for indoor obstacle mapping, exploration, and flight execution.

Designing a system to allow a visually impaired person to better navigate their environment.

A stationary unit designed to help facilitate the testing and storage of COVID-19 tests.

We are not okay with the compromised sound in online conference apps, and we investigated ways to improve.

Proposed by SPX Flow, the goal of this project is to characterize the oxygen transfer rate (OTR) within inert fluids of various viscosities.
Paul Eisold, Kamal Raji, Rony Waheibi, Collins Yawe

This Xerox-sponsored project aims to completely separate high viscosity PDMS and heptane via a solvent evaporation process followed by supercritical carbon dioxide extraction.
Alissa DeRubertis, Colin Ikei, Bryan Schellberg, Mark Volkin

This project, sponsored by Waste Management, is interested in comparing two methods for the removal of PFAS from landfill leachate, foam separation and activated carbon adsorption.
Justin King, Ashley Sibanda, Claire Wilson

The URMC Kidney Model Optimization Project aims to create a polymer material that can simulate the human kidney for practice by surgical residents.
Bimpe Isafiade, Harshita Mahaseth, Natalie Ramesh, Baris Eser Ugur

This project aims to characterize a wastewater stream in addition to addressing biochemical oxygen demand in cooperation with LiDestri.
Katerina Connor, Junseok Jeon, Connor Pope, Brian Yegela

This project was to design an accelerated testing system for Harbec, Inc to evaluate gaskets in the India Mark II hand pump for installation by the Ugandan Water Project.

Dan Allara, Oion Akif, Paul Irving, Tessa Ludwick

In this project, a lab-scale chromatography process was developed to purify crude LUV dye. Upon scale up at Eastman Kodak Company, the chromatography process would be able to purify 2 kg/day.
Quinton Dang, Waad Magram, Zhiwei Wang

This project aims to design and build a multi-channel reverse water gas shift reactor system that allows for exploration of heterogeneous catalysis.
Ahmad El Gazzar, Thien Hung Nguyen, Clive Onyango, Emilio Vega-Ramos

Tow Tank devices are used in testing boat and aerodynamic models for things like aerodynamic drag and lift. These devices typically cost around $20,000 which is the reason not every school has access to such a device. Here in the University of Rochester, we don’t have our own tow tank device, but we do have a swimming pool, and a passion for solving problems. In this post, we are showcasing our prototype for a tow tank that can be assembled and used in the gym swimming pool. The cost of the prototype and the completed final device is less than $1000!

The main goal of this project is to build, assemble, and successfully test an accelerated testing machine for the India Mark II. In the India Mark II pump, the water gaskets wore off frequently during the pumping of water and needed frequent replacement which proved costly. To counter the problem, the project below proposes an accelerated testing machine composed of a slider-crank mechanism. The mechanism incorporated a flywheel driven by a motor that ensures continuous harmonic motion that replicates pumping mechanisms in the field. The mechanism was designed, simulated and a finite element analysis carried out in CAD software. These are covered in the report along with testing results and recommendations provided for improvement of future designs.​

Modern mechanical engineers utilize computers but do not fully understand how the computer performs its computations. Understanding the fundamentals will give them a better understanding to the limitation of traditional computing. To address this gap between functionality and understanding, we built a 4ft by 6ft physical 3-bit adder to blow up the tiny processes that go on inside of a computer. Using a system of logic gates, where marbles act as inputs and outputs, our machine is able to add numbers 7 and below to each other and produce an output in binary.

Robotic control is becoming increasingly integral across many disciplines and industries. Understanding the fundamentals of robotic control evolves people’s way of life into a more convenient and efficient epoch. Here in University of Rochester, robotics courses enable students to have basic hand-on learning experience over robotic control systems. This robotic steering system team is aiming at designing an inexpensive but reliable, and easy to replicate solution which fits the needs to teach the robotics courses at University of Rochester.

Have you ever had a gourd and wanted it over there, but in a way that would inspire the masses? The Mechanical Engineering Department sure has, and has tasked our team with creating their submission to our ASME-hosted annual pumpkin launch.

The Pittsford Community Library Team was tasked to design and manufacture an interactive ball maze machine. Upon completion, the model will be moved and displayed within the children’s lofted play area of the Pittsford Community Library. The main goal of this project was to deliver a fully functioning ball maze display, decorated with laser cut wooden designs of landmarks across Rochester. Combining elements of STEM and history, the team hoped to create a fun and educational display that children, as well as all library visitors, can enjoy.

The Mary Cariola Classroom Aids project focused on developing LED light panels to refocus the attention of visually impaired students. Our solution includes 4 individual panels, as well as a stand that can rotate to three different angles to help accommodate various students.

Art and Engineering are two separate disciplines that don’t collaborate and intersect as much as they should. There are many mediums that mix both disciplines to allow for a fuller artistic approach to engineering, but these mediums aren’t abundant on the River Campus.
The Kinetic Sculpture capstone project aims to be the bridge between these departments through kinetic art. The following interactive art piece fuses the concepts of art and mechanics to provide students with a one-of-a-kind experience on campus.

With increasing concerns about the environmental impact of ground transportation, the industry needs alternative solutions that are safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly. One solution to the pollution problem is human-powered vehicles which emit zero greenhouse gas on the road. This project aims to implement a new material technology (fiberglass) into the design of a human-powered vehicle to make it more lightweight, functional, and safe. The test results concluded that fiberglass can indeed be used to manufacture the monocoque of a human-powered vehicle without compromises. The findings of this project will advance the engineering knowledge of fiberglass in this field and enable other engineering teams to use this technology in future designs.

Human-powered submarines are underwater vessels that are driven solely by the power of a human pilot. The Foundation for Underwater Research and Education (FURE) has put on the International Submarine Races (ISR) for several years. In the past, teams from around the world have traveled to the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division to compete and race with their human-powered submarine designs. With an in-person event not possible this year, a virtual event (vISR) will be taking place instead. The Human Powered Submarine team set out to tackle specific design problems related to the hull, drivetrain, and propulsion system of a human-powered submarine in the spirit of the virtual event guidelines.

The Ground Support team was asked to make a new design for a safe aircraft interface mechanism for the Shipboard Aircraft Handler (SAH). The SAH is made to grab, lift and tow Naval fighter jets, like the F-15 or the F-35, while on the deck of a aircraft carrier. The current design is being tested by Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River Maryland

L3Harris Technologies is an American defense company that builds a variety of mechanical, optical, and electrical systems. The Rochester division designs and builds systems for space applications. Optical space telescopes are widely used in both Earth and astrophysical observations and play a major role in scientific and national security. For optical telescopes to function properly and take clear images, their optics must be precisely aligned to focus light. However, during the launch of the telescope, the relative positions of these optics can change. The goal of the project is to build a mechanism to finely adjust the position of these optics to enhance resolution and accuracy of the telescope images. This improved image quality has significant implications for both terrestrial and space observations with applications to scientific research and national security.

Our team, along with Drill Powered Carts A have built a fully functioning, energy-efficient, and sustainable vehicle, which will be powered by a single electric power drill. By doing this, each team hopes to not only show people that electric-powered transportation is possible, reliable, and easy but, whose cart is the best. The two teams will face off in an endurance race to see which cart can make the most laps around a race track at the University of Rochester River Campus. This will show which team has the most optimized mechanical design.

The goal of this project is to launch a non-spherical shape in a controlled, repeatable manner to study the impacts of low-velocity debris on the granular surfaces of asteroids. This research could potentially assist in future missions to land on asteroids by learning about the trajectories taken after initial impact and the effects that spin, angle of impact, and velocity have on those trajectories. ​

Several optomechanical applications have a need for a 360° kinematic mounting system capable of withstanding thermal loading due to heat generation from electronic devices. It is advantageous for optical systems to have a repeatable and controlled, known distance between devices such as optics, sensors, light sources, mirrors or assorted non-optical sensors. The team was able to design a thermally stable spaceframe solution, capable of reducing movement of any assembled components to minimal displacements on the order of microns.

Our project was to implement a system of light reflectors that autonomously track the sun’s position and focus the light on a solar panel to maximize the incident light intensity and hence more power capture. The system was to be significantly cheap compared to buying multiple solar panels and capture more than double the solar power than using an ordinary solar panel.

Our senior design project is implementing an AI chess board. It uses Python and the popular chess engine Stockfish on a Raspberry Pi to show the user with LEDs where the computer would like to make its move. Our project was a success and could be used as a beginning step to make a more complex and intuitive chess board that plays chess against a user.

The Caldwell-Fay equation (2002) attempts to model what Lake Ontario’s current water level would be if dam construction had never taken place along the St. Lawrence Seaway (i.e. the natural hydraulic state of the lake).

Newly unearthed Lake Ontario data going back to the 1860s has been discovered, and we had the rare opportunity to be the first to digitize and publicly analyze it.

Since this data set predates any dam construction it actually captures the lake’s natural state. Therefore it can be used to verify Caldwell-Fey’s equation which is being used to govern the lake’s inflow and outflow rate on a daily basis.

The original intention was to make a robot that would retrieve tennis balls. The focus has now been switched to make a realistic robot simulator that can navigate to waypoints, which would be provided by tennis ball locations. OpenCV is used for tennis ball recognition to provide locations for the simulated robot to navigate to.

A surgical drain is placed within an internal wound site to prevent fluid from accumulating in the body throughout the patient’s recovery. A suture is currently used to secure the drain to the patient but has multiple shortcomings including infection risk and failure over time. We have worked alongside Dr. Sara Neimanis to create a new securement device that minimizes infection while durably securing the drain over extended periods of time.

The cautery phantom senior design team will engineer and improve a system that will arrest artificial blood flow in response to electrocautery in a tissue phantom manufactured by Simulated Inanimate Models, LLC (SIM). To solve this problem, we have investigated methods of vessel constriction by lining the tissue phantom blood vessel wall with a thermoresponsive material, coagulating the artificial blood by introducing proteins and chemicals into the mixture, and by making the blood vessel with a shape memory polymer.

A chair specifically designed to safely and comfortably sit infants and young children that are immobilized by a cast that spans from the mid abdomen to the ankle, all while allowing proper social and cognitive development. The chair incorporates extra space for the casted torso and legs, as well as multiple aspects of adjustability to fit the wide range of children sizes and to fit under tables of varying heights.

RTS is a regional transportation authority established by New York State and the goal of the project is to find the potential reasons for preventable accidents caused by bus operators. First, descriptive and exploratory analysis is performed on all the data provided and driver-related variables and environmental-related variables. Then, frequent pattern mining is applied and conditional probabilities are calculated for the accident history of operators with high risk of accidents to extract accident patterns.

The Rossell Hope Robbins Library is underutilized by many students on campus due to the lack of awareness of the library and its resources. To promote awareness for the library, this project contains designs for a “life-size” portable chess set with medieval themes.

Students at the Mary Cariola Center with visual impairments are attracted to light in rooms, often pulling their attention away from the teachers/lesson to look upwards at the ceiling lights. Lighted surfaces that provide contrast can help students focus on that surface and on any activity being performed on the lighted surface. The team was tasked with creating a mat suitable for children that illuminates in order to draw the student’s attention downward.

There is a need to ensure that drivers are alerted of approaching emergency vehicles so that they can remove themselves from the path of the emergency vehicle. It is especially a challenge for deaf, hard of hearing, and distracted drivers to identify emergency signals, which puts them at an increased risk for collision. In this project, we developed a device for use in the car that detects emergency vehicles and notifies the driver of their presence. We used a trained convolutional neural network to detect sirens in noisy environments. On our validation set, we achieved a 95% detection accuracy with a 50% criterion. A demonstration of our real-time detector and design schematic are shown below.

In Syria, there are thousands of refugees that have upper limb amputations that don’t have access to function prosthetics. Prosthesis for New Syria was founded by Omar Soufan and Ibrahim Mohammad to provide an affordable and functional prosthetic hand to these refugees. The goal of the design is to create a 3D printable prosthetic that improves on the design from the previous year by making the hand look more realistic as well as improve its functionality.

Development of polymers to simulate kidney tissues for surgical training of medical students at UR Medical Center.

Cataracts, a hardness and opacifying of the lens, is the leading cause of curable blindness worldwide, with the majority of cases occurring in developing countries where trained ophthalmologists are scarce. Our project is to develop a device to be used for a simplified cataract surgery that will insert a cylindrical intraocular lens into the cataract. By simplifying the procedure, more healthcare providers can be trained to perform the procedure, increasing the accessibility of cataract treatment in developing countries.

We were given a patient reported symptoms dataset PRO-CTCAE and applied a variety of clustering methods. The clusters were then statistically tested for associations with a selection of outcomes such as hospitalization. We found significant associations with clusters and outcomes and compared it to linear regression results.

The aim of this project was to design a device capable of removing impacted food boluses in pediatric patients both more efficiently and more quickly compared to current industry standards.

Our project is concerned with utilizing the electromagnetic spectrum from the sun to generate and store electricity. Baseline application is capturing the temperature differential created by the sun between a roof and the inside of an attic. Further applications include using black body emissivity and radiative cooling to provide solar energy harvesting in places where traditional voltaic cells are not feasible.

This semester I built an e-commerce application to sell my artwork and donate the profits to charity. I built a Node.js server using the Express framework and middleware to implement authentication, session management, and security features. The client side code uses the Jade templating language to pass run-time variables into static files which are rendered into HTML and passed to the browser. I designed a relational database to store the relevant information and built it out using MySQL.

Hyperion is a 3D visualization platform for optical design. It provides a fully immersive, and interactive 3D user experience. It enables the visualization of models of folded freeform optical systems. The frontend user experience is supported by the computational ray-tracing engine of Eikonal+, an optical design research software. We have built a cross-platform light-weight version of Eikonal+ that can communicate with any user interface. We have also demonstrated a prototype of the 3D user experience using a Hololens AR display.

MOTLEY (Main Organizing Terminal for Low Energy Usage) focuses on the creation of a Smart Home using a Raspberry Pi as the central device. Similar to the google home, we are able to control our in-house made and thoughtfully designed custom peripherals through the use of this Pi, granting our user the ability to remotely control various devices in their homes from their current location.

ProcBlocks is an educational tool designed to introduce students to the basics of computer organization. Each component of the processor can function separately, allowing for different configurations of the “blocks” to be used. The final product would include some kind of instructional text, covering the basics of transistors, construction of digital logic, intermediate hardware constructs, and the use of computational components in a complete processor.

Industrial scanners are often prone to jams, which are costly both financially and time wise. Our projects uses audio recognition algorithms to automatically detect and stop jams in real time. For our project, we are using an scanner provided by IMBL.

Memcached is a widely used key-value (KV) store. It is structured
as a multithreaded user-level server, accessed over socket
connections by a potentially distributed collection of clients.
Because socket communication is so much more expensive
than a single operation on a KV store, much of the client
library is devoted to batching of requests. Batching is not
always feasible, however, and the cost of communication
seems particularly unfortunate when—as is often the case—
clients are co-located on a single machine with the server,
and have access to the same physical memory.

Fortunately, recent work on protected libraries has shown
that it is possible, on current Intel processors, to amplify access
rights quickly when calling into a specially configured
user-level library. Library instances in separate processes
can then share data safely, even in the face of independent
process failures. We have used protected libraries to implement
a new version of memcached in which client threads
execute the code of the server themselves, without the need
to send messages. Compared to the original, our new version
is both significantly simpler, containing 24% less code, and
dramatically faster, with a 11–56× reduction in latency and
a roughly 2× increase in throughput.


Tibial shaft fractures are a common injury and may require surgical intervention. During our team’s observation of trauma surgeries at Strong Memorial Hospital, we found the procedure was inefficient. Tools used to align bone may move, and people holding alignment are prone to fatigue. Each time a tool moves, alignment is checked or redone using X-ray. Our device clamps to the surgical bed and locks the position of instruments reducing staff needed to hold alignment and increasing efficiency.

After a nuclear accident, radiation levels must be determined in order to ensure the safety of those involved in cleaning up radioactive material. The goal of this project is to produce a low-cost drone that can be used to survey the radiation levels present in a given area, and to produce a heat map of the measured radiation. All of this data must then be transmitted at a distance where the operators will be safe from radiation exposure.

Our group designed an audio headset with user-adjustable 360 beamforming, EQ, and gain control. The signal processing runs on Analog Devices’ EVAL-ADAU1452REVBZ using the Sigma Studio software. The headset uses ADMP401 MEMS microphones which are mounted on SparkFun’s MEMS Microphone Breakout boards – INMP401.

Various post-operative complications may lead cardiac surgeons to opt for delayed sternal closure following open heart surgeries. Patients’ sterna are left open and they are cared for in the intensive care unit for 1-7 days. In the ICU, bedridden patients are turned to prevent pressure ulcers and for linen changes. During these turns, the sternal halves rotate and twist, potentially leading to injury or death. Our device stabilizes the sternal halves during transport and turning, greatly increasing patient safety.

Our project focuses on solving the need to decrease the amount of muscle obstruction during minimally invasive lumbar surgeries in order to increase the surgeon’s visualization of the surgical field. We developed a medical device that decreases the muscle obstruction by expanding an inflatable at the base of a cylindrical port. The product was tested in a PVA mixture that resembles similar material characteristics as muscle which proved the plausibility and efficacy of the concept.

Hutchison Hall is home to the Biology department. However, there’s a lack of understanding regarding all research undertaken by the department. Hanging physical models can bring exposure to the department and create a vibrant and joyous community inside the Hutchison Hall. ​ The Eurypterid Team’s models are designed to represent the Jaekelopterus, a genus of the Eurypterid species. These models will be about 9 feet in length. The motorized tail and claws will be triggered through infrared motion sensors. ​

We are designing a device that will provide a cost-effective method for characterizing whether a particle in water is a plastic or nonplastic, as well as categorizing the subtype of plastic. The device will need to be effective on a scale of approximately one to five microns, which is the size of the microplastic particles.

Minimize nickel contamination of cleaning tanks in Orafol Precision Technology’s electroforming process.

Limit entry of abrasive sediment into India Mark II handpump for Ugandan Water Project.

The AI Sorting System takes a photo of a recyclable object, weighs it, and scans it with a metal detector. It inputs this data into a program that classifies the item as plastic, metal, or glass. The system includes 3 bins, one for each material. LEDs will light up on one of the bins and its lid will flip open, indicating that the recyclable should be placed in that bin.

A mounted secondary mirror of space telescope is designed to optimize wavefront error, mass, and dynamic response for launch survival and on-orbit performance. Additionally, the mirror’s behavior during launch, deployment, and operation in near subzero temperatures is analyzed.

A renewed focus on environmental concerns means that fuel efficiency and emissions of engines are of significant importance. A current design for a mixing nozzle exists, but the fuel residence could be higher and the pressure drop could be lower. A longer fuel residence time ensures smooth distribution of fuel and a more efficient burn. A lower pressure drop means that less energy is lost by the motion of the fluid through the mixer.

Helmets in the NFL are not effective enough to safeguard the health of the players. Players sustain concussions which can not only bench them, but leave life-long brain damage from the accelerations experienced during impact. As part of the project to improve the helmet, simulations were used to test material properties of different components of football helmets, such as hard foams, soft foams, and the shell. Data from the simulations were analyzed with performance metrics provided by the NFL.

After a total knee arthroplasty (TKA) surgery, some patients experience infection at the surgical site. This infection is often associated with the formation of bacterial biofilm, and in order to treat this, the surgeon must remove and replace the implant with the risk of reduced mobility and bone fraction. Our project is to develop a medical device to eradicate the biofilm without the necessity to remove the orthopedic implant.

This product is intended to be used by music producers/recording engineers as a simple instrument within a digital audio workstation. It entails programming a virtual instrument (synthesizer) in the C++ based programming environment, JUCE by utilizing wavetable synthesis. The synthesizer is meant to provide the user a basic virtual instrument with the ability to upload custom wavetables, and which includes integrated effects which can be modulated & controlled dynamically in real time.

The Children’s section at the Pittsford Community Library has three main spaces for play. While the two-spaces, located on the main level, are well defined and engaging for children with interactive elements, the project was to create a new interactive display for the third space located on the upper level.

The project aims to design a steering system for robots used in various ECE courses. The robotic system has issues with lifetime, maneuverability, and mobility. The new model was designed with an aim to direct most of the off-axis load into the chassis while still maintaining the capability of the DC motor driving the wheel. These improvements helped in significantly increasing the lifetime of the motors. Additionally, the ability to steer each wheel independently increased the mobility of the robot.

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, we are developing a mask that offers superior function in a fraction of the manufacturing time when compared to many emerging 3D printed mask designs. The design offers an improved seal around the face that is more comfortable, a more robust/airtight filter housing, autoclavable materials, and a quicker manufacturing method. This will allow local and national entities looking to produce DIY masks a better, faster alternative to 3D printing.

To create a device that is minimally invasive that will be used to measure a patient’s blood composition (hematocrit and blood plasma) using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to track changes in blood volume.

With much of the world adopting a heightened focus on environmental stewardship, an increasing number of people have turned to the bicycle for transportation. However, current bikes often lack versatile accessories to make them effective in situations other than simply commuting between locations. In order to make bikes more viable for everyday uses, they need to be fitted with ancillary components. This project involves the design of a multi-purpose, dividable trailer that can be attached to an adult bicycle.

The Rochester Museum & Science Center asked for help designing an interactive exhibit to honor Georgena Terry. The team designed a stationary bicycle where the saddle and the handlebars move in the vertical and horizontal direction with motors. A system was designed in order to determine and display the power output from the rider. When on the bicycle, the rider can fluidly adjust the bike geometry and be able to see how changing each dimension affects the power they produce.

Optimize creation of composites combining under-utilized hemp fabrics with epoxy.

Digital wavetable synthesizer; allows for 2-second user recordings to be used as custom oscillator sources. All DSP run on a SHARC chip, external controls via an Arduino.

Ten-μ solutions plans to introduce time and cost savings to the operating room (OR) through application-specific single-use instrumentation. Our instrument will allow surgeons to position and tension vessel loops at their discretion.

Using a rope of LEDs, connected to a Raspberry Pi with our software, we will read the audio signal from an HDMI cable and display colors on the LED strip that match the tone of the music. . The goal of our project is to be able to create a visualization to convey a similar feeling to people that are unable to hear the music.

The MRS is a specimen retrieval device that offers surgeons a way to remove malignant specimens during laparoscopic procedures without significantly widening minimally invasive incisions. The proposed device would use expandable braided sleeving to elongate and radially compress large tissue specimens for extraction through the initial incision. Use of this device would allow surgeons to remove large tissue samples through smaller incisions to reduce patient pain, recovery time, postoperative pain and length of hospital stay.

Identify Near Infrared transparent polymers to simulate human tissue for surgical training applications at UR Medical Center.

Creation of atmospherically-controlled chamber for UV degradation testing of novel OLED materials for Molecular Glasses, Inc.

A tow tank is a basin where models can be dragged across its surface to conduct fluid dynamic analysis. Rochester currently lacks tow tank capabilities for undergraduates, with the nearest tow tank at RIT. To resolve this issue, our team will create a tow tank for Rochester students that will utilize the Speegle-Wilbraham Center pool as the main body of water. The tow tank will allow experimentation for ME 241 Fluids lab students, providing data in drag or wake analysis.

Characterize LiDestri Food and Drink portfolio of spaghetti sauces to optimize manufacturing process.

The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) at the University of Rochester is in need of a portable and educational display that showcases the mission and capabilities of the facility. The project is a representative and visually captivating model that demonstrates the laser amplification process of Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA). This technique was invented by the LLE and revolutionized the industry.

A major challenge presented by the COVID-19 crisis is the limited number of caregivers that can attend to the influx of patients requiring ventilators. Our alarm app and sensor system allows caregivers to monitor the real-time performance of conventional and novel ventilators for multiple patients at once. Such data could be used to compare trends in current patient outcomes with previously recorded ventilator data. This would allow clinicians to foresee complications and make more informed decisions in treating similar diseases.