Capstone Design goes online

Friday, May 1, 2020

The Capstone Design project reinforces the concepts of team work, project management, research and design. This year’s fourth-year Chemical Engineering students added video production to the list of skills they learned from the project.

Traditionally, the Capstone Design Symposium is the culmination of the two-year project, which provides graduating students with hands-on opportunities to use what they’ve learned in the classroom and on co-op jobs. Each team chooses a real-world problem and develops a solution under the supervision of a faculty mentor.

The Symposium is a social, interactive event. The room buzzes with excitement as classmates present their research and prototypes through in-person posterboard presentations. Typically, it’s a lively and fun celebration of their hard work – and the beginning of their countdown to graduation.

Video prevails

When the University suspended on-campus activities in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chemical Engineering’s Capstone Design Symposium was one of the first events affected. Twenty-six teams of fourth-year students quickly changed course to present their projects via video.

It wasn’t necessarily an easy assignment, given the logistics of team members following stay-at-home guidelines and working on their projects together remotely. Some groups faced time differences, some faced computer and internet limitations, and others worked around the disruptions of new study spaces – complete with rowdy younger siblings. Everyone faced the challenge of working on an important project while balancing stress and uncertainty as the realities of the covid-19 pandemic became more clear.

Despite the myriad challenges, CHE students rose to the occasion and produced a series of informative videos that shared the details of their research and innovative ideas.    

The projects were judged by a panel of Chemical Engineering faculty and technical staff, who selected several teams for special prizes: the Bhattacharrya Award for Best Overall Project, the GM Innovation Award and, new this year, two Chemical Engineering Department Awards for Best Video Production.

Award winners

Special congratulations to the following teams, which won awards for their excellent Capstone Design projects:

Bhattacharrya Award for Best Overall Project

Nicolas Stalteri, Tiffany Chang, Nicolas Fillipoc, Franklin Price and Mercede Hazell
Nicolas Stalteri, Tiffany Chang, Nicolas Fillipoć, Franklin Price and Mercede Hazell won the $3,000 Bhattacharrya Award for Best Overall Project for their simulations and feasibilities studies for boiler feedwater management.

GM Innovation Award

Kayli Dale, Isabel Trupp, Allison Larocque and Jacqueline Hutchings
Kayli Dale, Isabel Trupp, Allison Larocque and Jacqueline Hutchings won the $500 GM Innovation Award for the greywater re-use system they designed to help Pepsi Quaker reduce their water consumption.

Departmental Awards for Best Video Presentation

Congratulations to the winners of two special $600 departmental awards that recognize high quality video presentation skills. In this case, those skills included the ability to adapt to new presentation requirements quickly and collaborate from a safe social distance.

Rena Chen, Kelly Huang and Spencer Lester
Rena Chen, Spencer Lester and Ke Yin (Kelly) Huang won for their presentation on removing microplastics from laundry wastewater.

Daniel Blazevic, Hillary Liu and Ryan Scherbey
Ryan Scherbey, Dan Blazevic and Hillary Liu won for their video on cannabis odor control.

Congratulations to all Chemical Engineering students for your excellent research, innovation and resilience as you pulled together to complete your Capstone Design project. Find out more about the exciting projects at 2020 Chemical Engineering Capstone Design Symposium.