Engineering Discovery Day sparks creativity in first-year students
The inaugural event prepares undergraduates for Design Day as they turn original concepts into working prototypes.
(From left) Engineering undergraduates Nick Inscho and Joshua Fraire collaborate with electrical engineering major Henrich Buendia and civil engineering major Baw Reh to design a sensor-equipped garbage can that alerts users when full.
First-year engineering students flooded the University of Arizona Engineering Building on Nov. 20 for Engineering Discovery Day, where over 140 interdisciplinary teams presented projects they designed from the ground up – including high-powered sensors and an automatic plant-watering system.
Five hundred and forty students participated in the event modeled after Craig M. Berge Design Day, the College of Engineering’s signature showcase for senior capstone projects.
“This is our first year running this event, and the results have been outstanding,” said Joanna Robertson, adjunct engineering professor and Discovery Day lead instructor. “Students were eager to pursue their own ideas and expand on the interests they developed during the Solar Track Meet.”
The Engineering 102B course included Discovery Day as its second design assignment. The event forms part of the college’s four-year Craig M. Berge Engineering Design Program, which ends with Design Day.
W.L. Gore & Associates, a global materials science company, supplied materials and awarded prizes to top teams for categories like best use of prototyping and best overall design.
Boosting skills in software, hardware
Chemical engineering major Aisha Gereau worked with her team to develop an ultrasonic sensor mounted on a servo motor that continuously rotated 180 degrees. The team also 3D-printed a housing unit to hide wiring.
“We explored different aspects of engineering, including radar coding,” Gereau said. “This was very different from the code we worked on during the Solar Track Meet, so we had to learn how to work with that and improve it to fit our project.”
She collaborated with biomedical engineering major Nour Alsuwaidan, civil engineering major Brayden Hubert and aerospace engineering major Roselyn Dorrell, a Flinn Scholar.
The sensor spotted objects in its path and displayed them on a computer screen. The team pitched applications from home-security monitoring to vehicle parking assist systems.
Mechanical engineering major Alexander Burchuladze and mining engineering major Paige Ann Brames present a Bluetooth-controlled robot operated with a mobile app.
“Getting to work on a project of our own choosing for our second major assignment was a lot of fun,” Dorrell said. “Being able to pick anything pushed us to dive deeper into concepts we were genuinely excited about.”
A water-saving solution
Another student-led project aimed to prevent overwatering plants.
The design connected two sensors to a water pump and a microcomputer to monitor soil moisture. When the moisture level dropped below 30%, the system automatically watered the plant.
“We spent most of our time learning how to use the microcomputer,” said Aiden Kim, an optical sciences and engineering major. “It processes the sensor data and signals the motor to activate or stop, regulating water flow to the plant.”
Kim was joined by aerospace engineering majors Josh Brossman and Maggie Henry and electrical and computer engineering major Latrell Smith.
“We loved choosing our own project and diving into areas we were curious about but hadn’t previously explored,” Henry said. “Discovery Day gave us the chance to look into other majors, including biosystems engineering for our project.”
Engineering Discovery Day award winners
All in the Same Boat
Megawatter’s: Tristan Kordell, Paolo Leatham, Willy Paz Pacheco, Graham Van Der Beek
Perseverance and Recovery
Group 6: Morgan Benedict, Anna Gerow, Erin Ortiz, Shlaghya Chaturvedi
Best Overall Design
Team 10: Marshall Lasater, Nguyen Hoang Nguyen, Jaden Creary, Mason Lusche
Best Presentation
Catergized: Madison Roldan, Jesus Blanco, Melody Albor, Aviana Scharfenberger
Best Use of Prototyping
CHRaSH: Aiden Pangborn, Hunter Marcus, Alexander Espinoza, Phat Le
