Engineering Design & Development Capstone Project

See project powerpoint here.

Entire project file available upon request (file too large for Squarespace format).

For my senior year EDD capstone project, I partnered with Sam Klopp to create our solution to the current public health crisis. Using the knowledge taught to us to date over PTLW’s Engineering coursework, we created a working UVC light wand with novel safety features unlike those currently available on the market. We spent the first quarter researching our problem, the second quarter coming up with our solution, the third creating it and the fourth finalizing our documentation and presentation.

For this project, we are able to go down a few different routes as a capstone course. By addressing public health, we had a lot of administrative constraints at a school level that directed us towards an electronic rather than chemical solution. While we could have come up with a novel chemical solution for surface application, we would not be able to work on it in class due to the lack of lab equipment in the workshop.

The most difficult part of the problem was iterating upon our design. We approached ample issues ordering our UVC LEDS from overseas, and the biggest drawback at the end of the day was the low voltage being outputted leading to the amount of UV light emitted to be suboptimal. Moreover, the clamshell design restricted our ability to further manipulate the prototype design without incurring additional costs. Overall, it was a great chance to get to work with industry professionals and communicating back and forth as we improved upon our project.