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Betty BEAR "roars" at Capstone Expo

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The Betty Back-country Emergency Air Responder ("Betty BEAR") was selected as the top aerospace engineering project at the April 23 Capstone Expo, held at McCamish Pavilion.

Altogether almost 200 teams from 11 of Georgia Tech's schools participated in the 2015 Capstone Expo, which showcased the final projects of seniors in a variety of disciplines.

Taking home the top Capstone prize was Shunt Doubles, a project of the School of Biomedical Engineering which devised a non-invasive method for assessing the effectiveness of shunts.

Sponsored by Boeing's AerosPACE program, Betty BEAR was the result of a year-long project that brought together top engineering talents from GT-AE, Embry Riddle, and Brigham Young University. Using high-tech methods to consult on their research, students from the three schools collaborated to design, build and fly an unmanned rescue vehicle capable of locating victims in remote locales.

"Boeing had wanted to help out first-responders, so they talked to a bunch of them to find out what they would want," said Nathan Prestridge, one of the four GT-AE Betty BEAR team members.

"So, then, we were tasked with building a hand-launched UAV that would use thermal imaging to identify the location of victims. The way it would work, a park ranger could program it to check a known trail, launch it, and then go back to his station to watch the video feed. The UAV would return to him on its own. The only thing he'd have to do would be to land it."

Prestridge was joined at the winner's podium by fellow seniors Raj Desai, Samuel Skidmoreand Brian Pogioli. Betty BEAR was not the only team to strut AE's stuff on Thursday. Also presenting at the Capstone Expo were the following GT-AE teams:

Check out the slideshow of AE Teams.

Check out the slideshow of the entire GT 2015 Capstone Expo

 

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  • Workflow Status:Published
  • Created By:Sapna Mistry
  • Created:02/09/2016
  • Modified By:Fletcher Moore
  • Modified:10/07/2016