SALT LAKE CITY — (FOX-13) Students just about to graduate from the University of Utah’s Department of Mechanical Engineering staged their annual senior design showcase Thursday.
The seniors formed teams and worked together on one project for the entire year. The projects aim to show off the knowledge and skills the students have gained in their first three years in the program.
Some students flexed their rocket making skills, while others designed an all new mouse trap. Another group created a toilet for people with disabilities that helps you sit down and stand back up. Another device is there to ensure 3D printers have enough filament to finish a run.
“We have a 3D printer over here connected to our standalone, filament measurement monitor, and what the monitor does is it measures how much filament is left on your filament roll,” said Milo Prisbrey, a team leader on the project.
Another team of seniors designed a quadcopter that can help rescue drowning victims.
“What we’ve done is we’ve taken a quadcopter, made it completely waterproof, and we’ve added a bladder to it, so that you can send it out to a drowning victim because every second sooner you can get it to the victim, will save lives,” said Shane Reeve, the team leader on that project.
A contraption that caught the attention of the crowds was a unique target board.
“Our project is ballistic darts, pretty self-explanatory name, a little bit of confusion, but essentially it’s a dart board for shooting,” said Team Leader Joe Leeman. “So it’s a target that can withstand .22-caliber rounds, and basically just bringing the classic game of darts, that everybody’s pretty familiar with, to the shooting range.”
The game even keeps score for each player.
The senior project provides a different kind of resume for the soon-to-be job-seekers, as the students can show off something they designed and created, rather than just listing their accomplishments on paper.