In the F17 semester, the Social/Environmental Design Impact Award was developed, which is a collaboratively funded award presented by the Office of Sustainability and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The award is aimed at inspiring and promoting socially and environmentally conscious design decisions within the capstone projects. Winners of the award are commemorated with a plaque inscription and a $100 donation to a charity of their choice. Each semester the capstone design professors assemble a collection of judges from across campus (e.g. Office of Sustainability, Risk Management, Resident Life) and beyond to review and evaluate the capstone projects at Design Day. Example winning projects include an oxygenator for small bodies of water, a manual clothes washing device for refugee camps in Uganda, and an oyster theft prevention device. This award has provided positive exposure for the Department and the ENME472 projects. Several news stories are released every semester celebrating the winners of this award, including one in Stem Link and one in Chesapeake Bay Magazine.
Judging Criteria: All ENME472 teams must consider additional non-monetary and non-performance related impacts tied to their design projects. These considerations can include direct social/environmental impacts of their products as a whole, or specific considerations related to their design choices (ex. safety, energy usage, consumables, material/manufacturing selections, etc.).
The award aims to honor teams with the best considerations outside of the typical financial or strict performance related design motivations. The teams are challenged to provide quantifiable impacts related to these categories and leverage these considerations to specifically motivate design choices within their projects. Some characteristics for outstanding projects are:
- Products that have a strong potential for social or environmental impact (health/safety, humanitarian, quality-of-life, environmental sustainability, etc.)
- Projects that have demonstrated significant or novel efforts in terms of properly exploring and quantifying their potential impacts
- Projects that have implemented significant or novel design solutions related to these considerations of potential impacts
Winning Projects
Fall 2020
MRF Shredders: Plastic unclogging for recycling plants
A dual-function tool to effectively cut and remove tangled plastic bags from material recovery facility equipment, reducing facility stoppages and inefficiency
Team Members: Talha Dasti, Wutong Jian, Guangyu Liu, Sepehr Motamedi, Dilshan Senanayke
$100 Donation: Maryland Recycling Network
Fall 2019
Kyle’s Bike Gang: Assistive Bike for the Blind
A bicycle and guidance system enabling a blind person to ride a bicycle while following another person/bicyclist
Team Members: Tayyip Doğu, Aydin, Helena Davis, Bryan Jensen, Helen Kent, Priya Kulkarni, Cavan Morley
$100 Donation: VME Custom Assistive Technology Program
Spring 2019
Suds & Studs and Mia: SAFI
A human powered washing machine designed for Ugandan refugee camps.
Team Members: Mark Butrico, Kevin McShea, Chris Webb, Sam Weingord, Mia Weintraub, Cole Wilson
$100 Donation: Uganda Red Cross Society
Fall 2018
Wheelie Awesome: Wheelie Awesome Chain Cleaner
An automated bicycle chain cleaning mechanism that reduces cost of bicycle maintenance, promotes carbon-free transportation, and increases bicycle lifetime
Team Members: Tim Czupich, Michael Healy, Nathan Mengers, Jeff O’Neal, Lizzy Wink
$100 Donation: The Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Spring 2018
Oyster Boys: Dredge Detection Device
A device to detect illegal oyster dredging and alerts authorities when thieves are stealing oysters
Team Members: Noah Todd, Steve Powers, Patrick O’Shea, Kyle Thibeault, Noah Suttner, Chris Buckley
$100 Donation: The Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Fall 2017
Save Chessie!: Chessie
A solar powered floating aerator to revive oxygen deficient zones in large bodies of water.
Team Members: Zachary Ball, Erik Bazyk, Andrew Graham, Mike Johnson, Sean Thomas, Mariya Tymofiy
$100 Donation: College of Southern Maryland Foundation
Volunteers for Medical Engineering
Volunteers for Medical Engineering provides custom assistive solutions for local clients with disabilities. The Mechanical Engineering capstone course has been partnering with VME since 2018 and has produced a multitude of projects over the years. These student teams get to flex their newly acquired engineering muscle to solve unique design instances with no current solutions.
Students work directly with a real-world problem, with a real-live client, and build physically realized solutions that have a real positive impact on a person in their community. Not only is this good social engineering empowerment, it’s good engineering empowerment in general!
Nik’s Assistive Kitchen Device
Team: Lift and Mobilize
A kitchen access device for a Nik, 20 yo client who relies on his feet to perform all tasks. The team provided a device that will allow the client to traverse around the kitchen, and safely raise and lower him so that he can access countertops, cabinetry, and appliances with his feet.
This group was a Linda Schmidt Innovation Award winner.
Alexander Fowler, Lucy Hamilton, Mason Long, Saheli Patel, Zachary Weilminster, and Joshua Wood
Jacob’s Powered therapy swing
Team: Swing it On!
Team Swing it On! developed a powered, adult-sized therapy swing set for a local teenager, Jacob, who has Down syndrome and cerebral palsy. Jacob enjoys swinging and would swing for hours if possible. Adult-sized powered swing systems are challenging to pull off, and this device was implemented and delivered.
This project was the Spring 2021 Social/Environmental Design Impact Award winner (can link this to the website story about the award)
Jacob Hogan, Sabrina Johnson, Sabrina Kim, Danielle Lawhorn, Ellenor Smethurst, and Michael Zimmerman
Kyle’s Assistive Bike for the Blind
Kyle’s Bike Gang produced a bicycle and guidance system enabling a blind 14yo boy to ride his bicycle along bike paths by guiding him to follow his sister. The project included a custom “strider” style bike with anti-roll back, a target + vision system, and a haptic feedback vest to provide directional information.
This project was the Fall 2019 Social/Environmental Design Impact Award winner. (INSERT LINK).
Tayyip Doğu Aydin, Helena Davis, Bryan Jensen, Helen Kent, Priya Kulkarni, Cavan Morley
Hand-crank Tricycle
Team: Hot Rod Engineering
The design and fabrication of a hand crank tricycle for children with lower limb deficiencies. This project improves upon previous one-off builds to create standardized design that simplify the manufacturing of these tricycles and makes them widely adjustable for children of all sizes and strengths.
Heather Ailinger, Patrick Brogan, Angelo DeLuca, Yoni Ferneau, Abigail Meyer, and Zachary McDonough
Jack’s Swing Project
Jack’s swing project was tackled as via a High School group from College Park Academy as a part of the Engineering for US All program. HS teacher and e4usa educator Brendan McCarthy partnered with UMD Faculty Dr. Vincent Nguyen, to have a class of HS students design a swing restraint device for a local client, Jack. Jack has Autism and Dravat’s Syndrome which leads to some coordination challenges and he is subject to seizures. The project occurred under remote instruction during the F20-S21 school year. The students worked directly with the client and family to design solutions which were remotely built and tested using student derived protocols. Two end products were delivered to the client in Summer 2021.
