Caleb Johnson is an undergraduate chemical engineering student, focusing on biology. With professor Agnes Ostafin’s help, he tested the production of nanoparticles that purify blood and is developing a pilot-scale device that will perform this for commercial medical use. Using stable nanoparticles made out of gold, Johnson and Ostafin created chemical combinations that have exteriors […]
Topic: Student Innovation @ the U 2017
Cheap Drones
Typical mapping drones cost anywhere from $1,000 to $50,000 to buy. Casey Duncan and David Wheatley, geology grad students at the U, and Sam Chesebrough, a grad student in mechanical engineering, wanted to make one for a fraction of the cost. And they succeeded. The three made one for only $600. Their DIY drone was […]
PlusOne Baby: Infant Breathing Monitor
Every year, more than 3,400 babies in the U.S. die of sudden unexpected infant death syndrome, often referred to as SIDS. While it’s rare, the chance is something that causes parents a lot of worry, and it helps explain why millions of baby monitors are sold every year. Relief might be on the way in […]
Multi-Disciplinary Design Projects
If you are a student interested in design, look no further than the Multidisciplinary Design program, or MDD, which is part of the College of Architecture and Planning. They teach every aspect of design, and every year, juniors and seniors get to develop real products around a theme. The 2016-17 theme was “adaptive future.” “The […]
Portal Power
When Mica Sloan and Aidan Daoussis moved into the Lassonde Studios in the fall of 2016, they only had one thing in common: a shared loft space. Placed together by chance, the two strangers quickly discovered that they shared a bit more than just a living room and kitchen — these two out-of-staters would stumble […]
No Soil Required
Imagine a garden in your home that requires no soil. Georgie Corkery, an environmental and sustainability studies and urban ecology major with a minor in design, spent her summer researching this idea, known as hydroponic lighting. Steve Burin, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the U, helped mentor Corkery through the research. “Hydroponic […]
Wedging the Internal Gap
As a biomedical engineering major, Brian Cottle, in his sophomore year at the U, developed “The Wedge.” It is used for abdominal muscle endurance testing in clinics that study intra-abdominal pressure. It allows clinics to consistently measure someone’s abdominal strength. You’re probably wondering, “What’s the point?” According to the National Center for Health, 24 percent […]
A Cup for Better Diagnosis
A wireless urine flow meter system leveraging cloud-hosting, smart phones and patented capacitance-based sensors by Stream DX has transformed a standard in-clinic urology procedure into a simple, at-home test to improve diagnosis and monitoring of lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), affecting more than 16.5M patients in the U.S. “This will improve quality and efficiency of […]
The Art of Foster Care
When you start a new class, you don’t usually expect to end that class with your own benefit corporation. For Daniel Hirst, an electrical engineering major, Meghan Pollard, a marketing major, and Caden Gregorie, an entrepreneurship major, that’s exactly what happened. During the spring semester of 2016, these three students fell on the idea of […]
A Portable Arcade System
U student Nick Mountz and high school classmate Dalton Clift combined a passion for technology and an entrepreneurial spirit to create Microcade, a small, portable, modifiable and stylish arcade cabinet, with support for over 35 consoles and other classic arcade systems. The Microcade features a 9-inch HD display, eight authentic arcade push buttons and an […]