Twelve Senior Projects Win Dean's Choice Awards at Annual Design Review

April 2, 2025 - Drone demos, virtual reality goggles and miniature robots were just a few of the 200 projects on display at the Samueli School of Engineering's Annual Design Review on Friday, March 14. Around 1,000 engineering students from the school's six departments filled up the UC Irvine Student Center where they presented their group projects.  

The senior design program gives fourth-year engineering students an opportunity to address real-world problems with innovative ideas for creative solutions. After working in teams on their projects for two quarters, students are then able to present their ideas by displaying or demonstrating them to a wider audience at Design Review. The annual event allows students to practice their presentation and networking skills, as they share their projects with alumni, industry professionals, faculty, fellow students and staff.  

Engineering Dean Magnus Egerstedt welcomed everyone and encouraged students to enjoy the event. “You've been in classrooms, internships, all sorts of things, but this is where the rubber hits the road,” said Egerstedt. “This is where the magic is, where you show off what you've learned. This event right here is what the value of an Anteater engineering education is all about.” 

Project teams spanned over three rooms in the Student Center. Clever and ingenious solutions were offered for important and practical issues, like a smart pet feeder, elderly care alert bracelet and sign language robot. Students kept attendees engaged with their presentations and demonstrations of interactive devices like a playable computer keyboard connected to a harp or an instant smart water bottle that can test a pH level in seconds.  

Around 40 guests attended the event, including Samueli Academy High School engineering instructor AJ Polizzi, who has attended regularly over the years, as it influences how he prepares his students.  

“It gives me a chance to interact with current engineering students,” Polizzi said. “And we’re feeding back what you guys are doing here to help motivate our students to pursue that work in high school. We go back to the kids and say, ‘hey, look, this is what they're doing over in college.’ We are teaching them the same lesson: going from an idea to a design to a product.” 

The three-hour event ended with the announcement of the Dean’s Choice Awards. Of the 21 nominations, 12 projects were recognized. The dean and a team of graduate student judges selected the winners based on the following criteria: if the project solves an important problem, if it is practical and if it has the wow factor. Below are this year’s Dean’s Choice Award winners. 

 

BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

EMG- FES: Rehabilitation & EMG-Assisted Control for Health (REACH) 

This project uses a patient-specific automated electrical simulation system to treat stroke victims’ hand contractures. Using AI techniques, the students hope to automate and improve stroke rehab and physical therapy.

Team members: Andrew Eck, HyungCheol Kim, Michael Song, Edmund Totah

J & J Medical Simulator: SimuMed Solutions  

The team won for their design of a model to help support catheter testing and improve catheter development safety through a realistic groin puncture model. The team — sponsored by Biosense Webster, a Johnson & Johnson MedTech company — won due to their accurate engineering methods in developing and testing materials. 

Team members: Hanh Nguyen, Janelle Ho, Lanie Le, Nadeen Morsi, Raul Quintero, Charissa Taim 

CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING 

Batch Distillation 

Students in this team tackled challenges relating to sustainable energy and environmental protection by investigating batch distillation. The use of distillation can be applied to everyday uses and products like to separate components, purify products, or aid in the production of alcohol, fragrances and more.  

Team members: Amy Fernandez, Salvador Martinez, Chloe Lee, Gordon Ko

CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

Black & Veatch: OASIS Project 

This project investigated the possibilities of utilizing secondary effluent, or treated wastewater, from a water reclamation facility to provide drinking water. The group of students found that this will drought-proof the water supply for climate change resilience. They also displayed their findings of water quality requirements, treatment technologies and permits and regulations needed to make this a reality.  

Team members: Joshua Faith, Taylor Mangold, Monica Tith, Por Asvaplungprohm, Justino Lopez-Gonzalez

APEX Environmental & Water Resources Remedial Design and Implementation  

Students in this team were able to explore the field of environmental remediation, which is the process of restoring contaminated environments. The students utilized hands-on and real-world experience at a site with significant environmental contamination. The project identified site-specific challenges and evaluated various approaches and technologies.  

Team members: Kendrick Pam, Ahtziri Meneses, Henry Rui Zhi Quan, Louwing Perez

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

Envision - Gesture Interface Device 

This team’s project aimed to solve the problems with enabling real-time AI for gesture recognition on devices with restricted storage and processing capabilities. The goal of the project was to help people not familiar with computers to have easier access to computing. The demonstration showed practical functionalities and input methods for applications.  

Team members: Ally Liu, Derek Duy Dao, Gregory Shklovski, Yasper De Jong

Project Prometheus (Wildfire Detection System) 

A wildfire monitoring system using energy-efficient sensor packs was proposed by this team. The dangerous issue of wildfires was addressed by the students, as they considered the challenges that remote areas face with early detection.

Team members: Andy Yang, Cem Babalik, Jaime Rodriguez, Kenny Lai 

Glove Band (Air Violin) 

The students in this team created a glove that allows the wearer to “play” violin with just hand movements. The sensor-embedded glove translates user movements into musical notes, which are processed by a microcontroller and output from a speaker.  

Team members: Tangqin Zhu, Canting Zhu, Zhengyang Zhuang, Thomas Yeung, Aarav Awasthy

MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE ENGINEERING 

Fluid Powered Vehicle Competition (FPVC) 

The Zotdraulics team built a vehicle that runs on hydraulic and pneumatic power via human input. The students represented UCI in its first entry into the Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge sponsored by the National Fluid Power Association, whose goal is to further fluid power technology.

Team members: Adrian Jimenez, Ben Trejo, Elaine Kwok, Ian Lin, Karen Gines, Steven Tsui  

UCI CanSat 

The annual international engineering challenge, CanSat asks student teams to design and build a space-type system. This year they designed a container deployable from a rocket with controlled descent rates. Last year, the team placed second in the U.S. and fourth worldwide.  

Team members: Kaylee Kim, Khushi Gupta, Sarah Ho, Brady Cason, Naethan Fajarito, Timothy Yee, Diane Yoon, Andrei Darujuan, Felix Jing, Zhanhao Ruan

UAV Forge 

This team developed an autonomous aerial vehicle to compete in the international RoboNation Student Unmanned Aerial Systems competition. The students hope their aircraft design will outperform their entry in last year’s competition, where they placed in fourth place nationwide. 

Team members: Silvia Tinelli, Ozzy Sanchez-Aldana, Eesh Vij, Anthony Tam, Trung Huynh, Isaiah Jacobs, Eric Pedley, Octavio Partida, Philip Jian 

MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

JPL: Designing Crushable Lattices for Terrestrial Hard Impactors 

Team members in this NASA JPL-sponsored group set out to find solutions for a low-cost hard landing of mission architecture. This is relevant for when rocks samples from Mars are brought to Earth. Students developed a lattice structure that will absorb energy from a hard landing.  

Team members: Andy Chen, Timothy Dang, Bryan Gong, Joelene Velasco, Martin Zhong

– Cassandra Nava