Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics
Senior Design is the two‑semester capstone of Penn’s practice‑integrated Mechanical Engineering curriculum, where students transform curiosity into creations. Over the course of the sequence, teams tackle substantial, open‑ended engineering challenges, applying theory, technical skills and inventive energy to conceive solutions that can range from market‑ready products to explorations of fundamental principles. With no “typical” project, the program celebrates surprising diversity and real‑world impact, showcasing the full breadth of mechanical engineering.
Awards Archive
Team AutoField, comprised of Roisin Keenan, Jake Wolfe, Kayla Bleier, David Kukoyi, Rebecca Scheinmann and Abigail Nibauer, and advised by Nat Trask, Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM), received the Best Poster Award, which recognizes the team whose poster stands out for clarity, creativity and impact.
AutoField is a semi-autonomous, GPS-guided field-lining system designed to reduce the time, labor and physical burden of marking athletic fields in nonprofessional settings while still meeting governing body guidelines. Designed as an affordable alternative to costly professional systems, it enables coaches, field managers and athletic directors to input field dimensions and autonomously apply precise, consistent lines, reducing field-lining time by approximately 50%.
Team Palaemon, comprised of Mathew Cruise, Ian Holly, Wyatt Johnson, Raphael Kalatzis and Ryan McGuirk, and advised by Nathaniel Wei, Assistant Professor in MEAM, received the Judges’ Choice Award, recognizing excellence at the discretion of the judges.
Palaemon is an underwater diver propulsion vehicle (DPV) that enables mobility while preserving dexterity for underwater contractors. Mounted to a diver’s backplate and controlled at the hip, the system frees both hands for tool use while providing multi-axis propulsion at speeds up to 1 m/s. Designed to meet industry needs, it supports efficient underwater movement while maintaining safety, portability and reliability.
Team LymphSense, comprised of Sonali Chandy, Lindsay Fabricant, Vanessa Gong, Lucy Liu and Hannah Youssef, and co-advised by Cynthia Sung, Associate Professor in MEAM, and Michelle Johnson, Associate Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, received the William K. Gemmill Memorial Prize for outstanding creativity.
LymphSense is a wearable, continuous pressure monitoring system for patients with arm lymphedema, a chronic condition that causes swelling due to lymphatic fluid buildup and affects many breast cancer survivors. The device uses a sleeve embedded with pressure sensors to track compression levels in real time and transmit data to a mobile app, allowing clinicians and patients to monitor whether bandaging remains within the therapeutic range. By providing accurate, continuous feedback, LymphSense improves treatment effectiveness and helps reduce complications during recovery.
Team TerraFix, comprised of Michelle Lin, Grayson Roberts and Marissa Teitelbaum, and advised by Jordan Raney, Associate Professor in MEAM, received the John Couloucoundis Prize, awarded for the best presentation of a senior design project.
TerraFix is a concrete anchor installation system designed to streamline a complex, multi-step process that often requires extensive tooling and labor. The system integrates drilling, cleaning and epoxy application into a single solution, improving efficiency and consistency while maintaining industry-standard strength requirements. By simplifying installation, TerraFix helps reduce labor costs and improve reliability across construction and manufacturing applications.
Team Polaire, comprised of Andrew Ahn, Oscar Capraro, Tyler Gong and Luca Thorson, and advised by Jessica Weakly, Lecturer in MEAM, received the Francis G. Tatnall Prize for an outstanding project showing ingenuity, proficiency and usefulness.
Polaire is a robotic inspection system designed to enable noninvasive evaluation of commercial heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) ductwork. Traditional inspection methods are disruptive and rarely performed, allowing damage and debris to go undetected. Polaire navigates through ductwork and uses onboard cameras and sensors to assess interior conditions, helping technicians identify issues earlier and reduce the need for costly repairs.
A Concrete Anchor Installation System
The concrete anchor market is a $2 billion dollar industry with over 100 million concrete anchors sold every year. These anchors are used in a variety of applications, such as construction and manufacturing, to bolt down machinery and other important fixtures.
TerraFix aims to make the installation process for concrete anchors more efficient as there are currently many discrete steps within the overall process, leading to excessive tooling, high labor costs, and inconsistencies in installation quality. By providing a single unified product for technicians while maintaining industry standard strengths for installed anchors, TerraFix addresses these challenges. At its core, TerraFix is an enhancement package consisting of an improved anchor that allows for simultaneous drilling and cleaning, an integrated vacuum, and a hassle free epoxy injection insert.
The team has currently developed a prototype anchor which has been successfully installed and validated for strength requirements up to 31ksi in 5000 psi concrete, the upper limits of expected usage. Furthermore, prototypes have been developed for the vacuum and epoxy systems, with functionality testing in work.
Team TerraFix is composed of Michelle Lin, Grayson Roberts, and Marissa Teitelbaum and is advised by Jordan Raney, Associate Professor in MEAM.
A Finger Training Device for Rock Climbers
Rock climbing is a fast-growing sport, highlighted by its 2020 Olympics debut. With this growth, many recreational rock climbers are eager to improve their performance to challenge themselves on harder and more exciting rock climbing routes. Training finger strength is a key way to improve performance, but current leading market solutions – hangboards – lack sufficient personalization and feedback for climbers to strengthen their fingers as efficiently and safely as possible.
HangLogic is the first smart hangboard for recreational rock climbers that allows for per-finger load tracking. Higher-resolution load tracking, combined with customizable layouts, offers an unseen level of personalization that lets users clearly track progress and identify fingers lagging in strength before getting on the climbing wall.
HangLogic features a one-hand portable form factor, with replaceable “finger blocks,” so users can customize finger loading to their desired routine. The device also features Bluetooth connectivity to an app, allowing users to get live per-finger loads and cross-workout progress. The device is powered by AA batteries for ease of use for everyday users. Per-finger load sensing is achieved via small piezoelectric sensors, but due to inherent inaccuracies, the device will use an S-type load cell to sense the total load. This achieves a 1% error on total load and 5% error on per-finger loads with live calibration.
Team HangLogic is composed of Jonas Ho, Kunwoo Kim, Jun Kwon, and Peter Shen and is advised by Mark Yim, Asa Whitney Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
Adsorbent Testing Apparatus
LoAdsorb is a customized testing chamber designed for the startup Tidal Metals, to characterize adsorption properties of a specialized adsorbent segment. Tidal Metals extracts magnesium from seawater, by electrolyzing magnesium chloride crystallized out of seawater. Their patented adsorbent material enables efficient water removal from brine to isolate the salt. While the adsorbent has already been incorporated into manufacturing workflows following proof of concept, its true efficacy remains unknown. Data collected from further characterization of adsorbent segments is necessary for Tidal Metals to attract more investors and customers, and to further optimize their technology. Existing desiccant characterization techniques do not meet the specific needs and configurations required by the system to accurately simulate operating conditions of the adsorbent segment. LoAdsorb will enable operando measurements by simulating adsorption-desorption cycles within the controlled environment of a vacuum sealed chamber.
LoAdsorb tracks water uptake of the adsorbent segment with time using a mass measurement, while also recording operating conditions such as humidity level, pressure and temperature of chamber atmosphere and segment.
A previous prototype of the testing chamber suffered from ineffective heat exchange, damage to electronic components and condensation. To overcome these issues, Tidal Metals requested redesign of the tester to establish efficient thermal contact between the segment and the heat exchanger and to build reliable electronics for sensing.
Within LoAdsorb a direct contact configuration allows for efficient thermal contact and redesigned electronics bypass previous issues. The load cell has been moved from the bottom of the chamber to the top to allow for easier troubleshooting through the removable top and also to prevent damage due to pooling condensation. We also present data on adsorption performance collected for temperatures in the range X-Y oC.
Team LoAdsorb is composed of Emma Chu, Achala Kankanamge, Peyton Jenkins, and Medha Patel and is advised by Igor Bargatin, Associate Professor in MEAM.
Grass Auto-Imprinting Assistant
Professional and collegiate sports teams lose out on seasonal revenue and compromise grass health due to reliance on conventional field paints when rendering event-specific graphics on their turf. To address this, our team has developed an autonomous robot that uses lawn striping techniques to create images without paint or any other additives. The product has applications for marketing teams, field maintenance, and audience members for professional and collegiate sports.
GAIA is an autonomous robot that is able to selectively bend regions of grass to produce clear 2-D images, such as logos or advertisements, while maintaining grass health and longevity. GAIA allows multiple cycles of temporary images to be produced on the same surface due to the lack of permanent grass alteration. With a system of rollers and air blowers, GAIA bends grass in one of two directions, producing dark and light “pixels” that produce an image to the viewer using the same principles as lawn striping.
Due to its autonomous nature, the end-user simply uploads an image to GAIA’s software program, where a series of pixels and subsequent robot pathing are generated. The user positions GAIA on the desired field location and starts the printing process. After the printing time of up to three hours, the user will have their image produced cleanly on the grass surface.
Team GAIA is composed of Theodore Kang, Christine Meng, Megan Murray, Riya Nandakumar, Christopher Takoudes and is advised by Bruce Kothmann, Senior Lecturer in MEAM.
A Modular, Compliant, Underactuated Universal Gripper
Existing robotic grippers remain limited by adaptability, complexity, and cost, restricting their use in house-hold environments. This project addresses the need for a low cost, universally compliant robotic gripper that can grasp a wide range of irregular-shaped objects without complex sensing or control algorithms for common manipulation tasks around the home. The primary stakeholders are people with physical disabilities or limited mobility who would benefit from robotic assistance with picking-up and manipulating daily objects. Stakeholder inputs emphasize grasp reliability, simplicity in the design, and affordability.
Our solution is an underactuated gripper with compliant joints. The system consists of up to 10 serially connected modular segments driven by a single motor through a gear-train transmission. Elastic elements on each module enable passive compliance with contacted objects and steady force exertion across 10 contact points. The gripper operates with a simple hold-release mechanism, requiring only one degree of freedom for actuation. The gripper can be easily assembled onto standard medical robot-arm platforms, such as the Hello Robot Stretch 3.
Efforts advancing the solution include demonstrations of compliance, force closure, and basic usability. Current efforts are focused on improving adaptability, strength, and validating grasp quality on a wider spectrum of test objects, including corner-case geometries. Specifically, progress is aimed at constructing a multi-chained design capable of both pinch and enveloping grasp as well as refining component geometry, assembly methods, and build quality.
Team Corallus is composed of Zihao Zhou, Yinjie Wang, Winston Lee, Sunny Yu and Ellis Davenport and is advised by Mark Yim, Asa Whitney Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
An assistive-feeding exoskeleton arm for ALS patients
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease impairing voluntary muscle control, leading to severe motor limitations and limb weakness. As a result, 40% of ALS patients experience severe malnutrition [1]. Studies show that on average, this increases mortality risk by ~30% [2].
Assistive technologies are critical in preserving autonomy for ALS patients while also alleviating the difficulty of receiving proper nutrition.
Unlike conventional robotic feeders, Allevia Arm restores natural arm motion, with three degrees of shoulder movement and elbow control and a rigid exoskeleton brace that’s easily wearable and enables independent feeding.
The device is designed to operate for 28 minutes, the maximum meal length for ALS patients. Our design features a carbon fiber frame to pass the weight limit on an ALS patient’s shoulders of ≤ 4.3 kg. Four DC motors power shoulder mobility and elbow flexion, with electronics housed in a backpack-style backplate to reduce arm load. Safety is maintained through hardware/software stops and emergency shutoffs.
Currently, the team utilizes a CAN bus to read motor torque, generating speed and position adjustments as a patient attempts to lift their arm. We’ve powered one motor and manufactured final carbon fiber linkages. Next steps include powering the remaining three motors, integrating CAN bus readouts, and applying gravity compensation techniques to filter out arm-weight torque.
Team Allevia Arm is composed of Amar Mohamed, Angelo Sali, Joshua Tiu, Rebecca Wang, and Alvaro Dominguez and advised by Mark Yim, Asa Whitney Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
The award is presented annually to the senior(s) whose senior design project is chosen for its excellence, based on the discretion of the judges.
The William K. Gemmill Memorial Award is awarded annually to the student(s) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics who demonstrate(s) outstanding creativity in an senior design project.
The prize is given to the best presentation of a senior design project. The purpose of the prize is to encourage students to present as professional and polished discussion of their work as possible. That means being able to explain the project in a clear, concise, and persuasive manner. The presentations will be judged to use the same guidelines under this category used in the school-wide competition. (How is the project presented? What arguments does the presenter give to support his/her project? Are the arguments clear and easy to understand? How are the presenter’s language skills? Is the supporting material focused and convincing?) Recipients of this prize must present their design at the School-wide competition.
The Francis G. Tatnall Prize is awarded to the senior(s) whose senior design project is judged to be the most outstanding and which reflects the qualities of ingenuity, technical proficiency, and usefulness which characterized the work of the distinguished alumnus after whom the prize is named.
