Student Inventions

Designing, building, and inventing are at the core of Tufts Engineering. Whether revolutionizing robot communication, advancing autonomous vehicles, or problem-solving patient-saving equipment during a pandemic, Tufts engineers don’t wait until after they graduate to innovate.

SENIOR DESIGN PROJECTS

Thread-Based Data Glove How do you make a data glove user-friendly and cost-effective? Using the resources of the Tufts Nanolab, Danny Bronshvayg ’20, Aaron Epstein ’20, Nadya Ganem ’20, and Ben Santaus ’20 achieved this goal by developing a thread-based sensor for each finger of their data glove, which can identify hand rotation and detection.

Multichannel Micropipette You can find many Tufts engineers partnering with local startups to kick-start their senior design projects. Courtland Priest ’20 and Jordan Hindes ’20 prototyped a multichannel micropipette for the Tufts University Medical School. Through developing a standardized diagnostic technique, this multichannel micropipette will reduce error rates and develop a calibration standard for breast cancer diagnosis.

Four cartoon people carry a large cartoon hand.

CLASS PROJECTS

Swarmbots As part of their junior research project, Ashwin Swar ’20, Chris Markus ’20, Benny Roover ’20, and Danielle Blelloch ’20 set out to create one of the first fully autonomous passenger vehicles. These vehicles, known as swarmbots, were equipped with color sensors, a collision detection and pedestrian detection system, headlights, brake lights, and even turn signals. These swarmbots were able to successfully navigate a simulated city block.

Visualizing a Robot’s Perspective of the World Want to learn what’s going on inside the mind of a robot? Working together with Professors Jivko Sinapov and James Schomolze, Amel Hassan ’20 and Faizan Muhammad ’20 used augmented reality software to project robots’ inside thoughts. This brought them one step closer to improving how robots communicate with humans.

Lopbot What can Tufts engineers invent with a budget of $400 and three months’ time? Human factors engineering major Janna Sokolow ’20 and her team created a vacuum impeller, motor, suction mechanism, and power system...all to build their very own autonomous, high-powered, high-volume, industrial shop vac!

A man holding a clipboard stands next to a strange car.

FIRST-YEAR PROJECTS

Smart Toys for Kids Imagine building and inventing as soon as you arrive to Tufts as a first-year student! For Anica Zulch ’23, Madeleine Pero ’23, Kennedy May ’23, and Kate Wujciak ’23, that’s exactly what happened in their Introduction to Engineering (EN1) course, Inventing Smart Toys for Kids. By building circuits, writing code, and crafting puzzle pieces with neodymium magnets, this team developed an electronic puzzle that would know when it has been completed. They even created an app so parents can see how long it takes their children to complete the puzzle.

Programming a Pendulum When she was assigned a pendulum project with other students in her engineering science class, Madeline Fabela ’23 faced her first ever coding challenge. After building a two-foot-tall pendulum in the Nolop FAST Facility, her team gathered data about the acceleration, displacement, and speed of the pendulum, and then wrote a script that analyzed and plotted the data. The project not only introduced her to computer programming, but also allowed her to better understand what she was learning in her physics course.

Fighting Covid-19: Flowmeter Tufts engineers solve real-world problems outside and inside of the classroom. As part of his mechanical engineering design class, Kamar Godoy ’22 designed a flowmeter that would help adjust ventilators to treat more COVID-19 patients. As hospitals become more crowded and life support resources more limited, doctors are expecting the need to have four people per ventilator. Kamar’s apparatus could help reconfigure the ventilators and balance the airflow equally to multiple people.

Addressing Medical Non-Adherence in the Elderly For their product design class, Becky Lee ’22, Katie Jordan ’22, Noaf Alsheikh-Ali ’22, and Sami Rubin ’22 formed the team MedCo and took on a challenge from Design Science, a human factors engineering company located in Pennsylvania. For this semester-long project, the team performed user research, planned usability tests, and designed an app and interactive pillbox to help address medical non-adherence in the elderly population.

An unfinished puzzle.

A car with a map on its side and lights on top.

CLUB PROJECT

TEMS Tracker Tufts students are always helping each other! Design for Social Good (DSG) club members worked together with Tufts’ Emergency Medical Services (TEMS) to create an ambulance tracker system. Built from Arduinos, this tracker updates the location of the university’s EMS truck every 10 seconds and collects driving data. With this information, the student EMTs working for TEMS can organize better shift changes and improve their response to medical emergencies. A safer and healthier campus to look forward to!

Three students stand on three paths doing various activities.