Student innovators
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Videography and production by Liese Greensfelder; photos by Liese Greensfelder and Avi Goodman, UC Davis
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So many creative ideas
Senior-class inventors team with docs and vets
Student engineering projects are nothing new. In fact, to be accredited, college engineering programs around the country must include “capstone” classes that meld four years of coursework with hands-on design and construction projects.
But at UC Davis, capstone classes provide mechanical and biomedical engineering students with a wealth of opportunities that undergraduates at most other institutions can only dream about.
“What we have to offer is a powerful combination of resources,” said Bruce White, dean of the College of Engineering.
“Not only do we have our veterinary and medical schools to draw on, but we’ve also engaged outside companies to work with our students. This ensures that our undergraduates are learning about real-world industrial problems and experiencing first-hand how engineering interfaces with business processes.
“To the best of my knowledge, no other institution matches this unique mix of clinical, medical, vet med and business experiences that we provide.”
Medical and veterinary collaborations
Collaborations between engineering students and medical school faculty were given a boost this year when the school’s Clinical and Translational Science Center threw its weight behind the capstone classes.
Forging ties between medical researchers and budding engineers seemed an ideal way for the center to help achieve its goal of moving research from the laboratory to patient care as quickly as possible, explained Nicholas Kenyon, director of one of the center’s training programs.
During the design phase of the capstone project class, a team of biomedical engineering students used Autodesk Inventor software to create this 3D modeling image of their wheelchair design. (Biomedical engineering team/UC Davis graphic)
During fall quarter Kenyon and Cristina Davis, an assistant engineering professor who heads the mechanical engineering capstone course, sent e-mail messages to every faculty member at the School of Medicine. Did anyone need a device, the pair asked, that could improve patient care — a device that did not yet exist?
A similar note went to all veterinary school faculty from associate professor of biomedical engineering Angelique Louie.
Easter Seals projects
In the meantime, Anthony Passerini, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, was talking with staff and touring the facilities of Easter Seals Superior California, an organization in Sacramento that provides rehabilitation services for people with disabilities.
“We talked with them about their needs and what kinds of things that we might be able to design for them that would help them interact with their clients,” said Passerini, who along with Louie has led the biomedical engineering capstone classes since their inception in 2006.
One motivation for Passerini was to find projects that would allow his students to work directly with the users of the products they were going to create. “My hope was that if the students got to see the results of their work benefiting someone in need, that might generate enthusiasm for their projects,” he explained.
Laryngoscopes for llamas and wheelchairs for therapy
Together, the efforts of Davis, Louie and Passerini yielded projects for 11 biomedical engineering and eight mechanical engineering teams, totaling about 80 students. (Another six mechanical engineering teams took on projects without a biological component.)
Nicholas Kenyon also arranged for the CTSC to provide $5,000 to three student teams for purchase of parts and materials for their devices.
A team of four biomedical engineering students designed and built this device for holding and stabilizing a dog’s head during brain surgery. (Avi Goodman/UC Davis)
From January to June, these student teams worked with their faculty sponsors to design and build a myriad of devices.
Mechanical engineering student teams made such tools as a laryngoscope that allows veterinarians to access the long throat of a llama and a support system on wheels for mobility impaired dogs during physical therapy sessions.
Equally creative biomedical engineers
Biomedical engineering teams were equally creative, fabricating such devices as a sophisticated clamp and adjustable arm for holding a dog’s head during brain surgery; a realistic model of a baby for use by medical residents learning how to treat a rare life-threatening disorder in infants that occurs when one section of the intestine folds into another; and a miniature mechanical instrument implantable under the skin that will help victims of facial paralysis blink their eyes.
Passerini’s efforts led to Easter Seals projects for three biomedical engineering teams and a mechanical engineering team.
One team designed a wheelchair that can be used in swimming pools to hold patients up to 800 pounds during physical therapy sessions. Another fabricated an inexpensive device based on off-the-shelf laser pointers that allows mobility and speech-impaired patients to communicate needs by pointing to objects in the environment.
When Angie Louie came up with the idea of linking her biomedical engineering students with graphic design students to create professional-quality marketing materials, she found an enthusiastic supporter in the design department: Gale Okumura, a lecturer in visual communications.
On the home page: Mechanical engineering student Nelson Dichter works on a device to support mobility impaired dogs during physical therapy sessions. (Cheng Saechao/UC Davis photo)
Okumura arranged independent study courses for nine graphic design students, who worked closely with engineering teams to design brochures, display panels and logos for the new inventions.