{"529901":{"#nid":"529901","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Health Is Star (Again) at Spring Capstone Design Expo","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIt was a big night for health at spring\u0027s Capstone Design Expo, as teams targeting medicine and wellness took home nearly half of the event awards.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Expo\u0027s overall winner, Hub Hygiene, was an interdisciplinary team that aimed to reduce bloodstream infection rates. The group showed off a device that cleans a needleless IV connector.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn recent years, health-centric projects have grabbed center stage at the Expo, which is in some ways a compass for Georgia Tech at large. The Expo began as an exhibition for mechanical engineering alone, but it now hosts hundreds of students and reflects the Institute-wide emphases on real-world applicability and human needs.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEach Capstone Design Expo showcases senior projects from about a dozen Georgia Tech schools (most of them in the College of Engineering). The idea is for students to create prototypes that solve problems, though projects at the Expos are as diverse as the students themselves.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMany teams work with big-name sponsors \u2013 The Coca-Cola Company, Ford Motor Company, The Home Depot \u2013 to tackle corporate issues like supply chains. Some groups strike out on their own, designing new inventions that sometimes become foundations for full-fledged startup companies.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOther universities host similar events, but Georgia Tech\u2019s version stands out thanks to heavy alumni involvement and participation from around the Institute.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETeam Purrfect Engineering, which designed a better way to make paper tunnels for pet-toy company Dezi \u0026amp; Roo, worked in the Invention Studio to create a prototype.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt just looked like such an interesting project,\u201d said team member Joseph Tenpenny. Thanks to his mechanical engineering team\u2019s work and its Invention Studio creation, Dezi \u0026amp; Roo has a more efficient manufacturing process for its cat tunnels.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETeam Second Self, which won the industrial engineering prize, boasted a different kind of Georgia Tech connection: Its sponsor was a brewery owned by two Tech alumni. And plenty of graduates attended the Expo as either visitors or judges, giving students a chance to network and show off their skills.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cA Georgia Tech alum who\u2019s now attending medical school came by our table and said [our project] is really interesting,\u201d said Shirin Kale, a biomedical engineering senior and member of the Infinitis team. Her group, which designed an IUD that\u2019s easier and more comfortable to insert than current models, eventually won the prize for best interdisciplinary project.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETwelve teams, out of 110 total, ultimately earned awards at the spring Expo. But with so many students competing, prizes aren\u2019t always the point.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe biomedical engineering team All-in-Vein, which developed an automated system to check for IV infiltrations, was sponsored by Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta. Infiltrations happen when IV catheters slip from veins and leak fluid, and because they affect up to 50 percent of pediatric patients, they can mean big trouble.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlthough graduation is just a couple weeks away for the All-in-Vein members, they plan to continue their work, said group member Kaci Crawford.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe were really encouraged after getting our provisional patent,\u201d she explained.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJudges finished assessing spring Expo teams by 7 p.m., and by 8:30, the evening\u2019s awards, photographs and speeches were all over. But for All-in-Vein and plenty of other teams, the work has only just begun.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Interdisciplinary team Hub Hygiene won the evening\u0027s top award."}],"field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The spring showcase of senior design project highlighted health-related work."}],"uid":"28075","created_gmt":"2016-04-27 09:59:05","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:21:28","author":"Lyndsey Lewis","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-04-27T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-04-27T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"529881":{"id":"529881","type":"image","title":"Capstone Design Spring 2016 Winners","body":null,"created":"1461942000","gmt_created":"2016-04-29 15:00:00","changed":"1475895307","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:07","alt":"Capstone Design Spring 2016 Winners","file":{"fid":"88914","name":"capstonespring16_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/capstonespring16_0_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/capstonespring16_0_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":671911,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/capstonespring16_0_0.jpg?itok=MYFmewQs"}}},"media_ids":["529881"],"groups":[{"id":"1237","name":"College of Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"32061","name":"capstone design expo"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39451","name":"Electronics and Nanotechnology"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"},{"id":"39471","name":"Materials"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"},{"id":"39491","name":"Renewable Bioproducts"},{"id":"39521","name":"Robotics"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELyndsey Lewis\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["lyndseylewis@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}