Technology, Scholarship on Display with Winners of Northrop Grumman Student Design Showcase

Winners Include Projects on Kidney Disease, Prosthetics

MELBOURNE, FLA. — With more than 130 different posters and exhibits on display at the Northrop Grumman Engineering & Science Student Design Showcase on April 8, judges had plenty of outstanding scholarship to choose from.

The four most prestigious awards handed out after the showcase were the President’s Cup awards selected by Florida Tech President and CEO Anthony Catanese and Executive Vice President and COO T. Dwayne McCay, and the Engineering Champion and Science Champion “best in show” awards from Northrop Grumman.

The winners in the 2016 showcase were:

From the College of Engineering:

• President’s Cup award winner: “PriMA Prosthetics – 3D Printed Pediatric Prosthetic Arm,” Taylor Atkinson, Ryan Babbitt, Nicole Ballman, Thaddeus Berger, Clyde Brown, Meet Pastakia, Justin Pavao, Austin Spagnolo, Zuhoor Yamani.
• Northrop Grumman award winner: “Air-Ball: The Free-Flying Satellite Simulator,” James Byrnes, Andrew Czap, Jerry Wang, Gonzalo Rivera, Casey Clark, William McKinnon, Frank Savino.

From the College of Science:

• President’s Cup award winner: “Clinical and Genomic Risk Factors of Chronic Kidney Disease,” Zoe Ashton.
• Northrop Grumman award winner: “Comprehensive Spectral Energy Distribution for the Surface of Airless Bodies,” Ramanakumar Sankar, Timothy Drost.

There were also awards given to each department and/or discipline within the two colleges.

For the College of Engineering, those recipients were:

Aerospace Engineering: “Project DAWN,” John Poothokaran, Kunal Badrinarayan, Nathan Baldwin, Mark Montero, Robert Hastings, Mariam Ahmadkhanlou, Tesfaye Jote, Gavin Jones, Umut Oztekin.

Biomedical Engineering: “PriMA Prosthetics – 3D Printed Pediatric Prosthetic Arm,” Taylor Atkinson, Ryan Babbitt, Nicole Ballman, Thaddeus Berger, Clyde Brown, Meet Pastakia, Justin Pavao, Austin Spagnolo, Zuhoor Yamani.

Chemical Engineering: “Production of Ethylene from Shale Gas via Oxidative Coupling of Methane,” Emmanuel Akpan, Waad Al Asmi and Kevin Jefferson.

Civil Engineering: “The Design of the Extension of Edgewood Drive and the Expansion of Columbia Village Parking Garage,” Elaine Brown, Nick Stahl, Jerome Rogers, Annes Saber and Salem Almansoori.

Computer Engineering: “Rockin’ Hat,” Victoria Crank, Ivanna Mahabir, Tatjana Jemmott, Jasmine Anne Turla.

Computer Science: “San Francisco Crime Classification,” Anthony Alves, Ian LaFlamme, Hunter Mack, Melisa Villmow.

Construction Management: “The Green Panther Dormitory,” Ralph Bahous, Alex Lasurdo, Keith Somawardana, Thomas Filipow, John Martin, Alex Cummins, Rakan Alharbi.

Electrical Engineering: “Light Exoskeleton Gear (L.E.G.),” Ali Al Matouq, Kelsey DeJesus-Banos, Andy Myers, Jessica Vidmark.

Marine & Environmental Systems: “Verification of Precipitation Forecasts from National Weather Service High Resolution Forecast Models,” Kelly Reardon.

Mechanical Engineering: “Autonomous Luggage Transportation System (ALTS),” Alex Eierle, Eric Voigtlander, Haoyan Kuang, Max Le, Bradley Jones, Paul Kepinski, Jeffery Hagans, Mo Mohamed.

Multidisciplinary: “PriMA Prosthetics – 3D Printed Pediatric Prosthetic Arm,” Taylor Atkinson, Ryan Babbitt, Nicole Ballman, Thaddeus Berger, Clyde Brown, Meet Pastakia, Justin Pavao, Austin Spagnolo, Zuhoor Yamani.

Ocean Engineering: “Remotely Operated Sea Crawler (ROSCoV),” Brooklynn Byford, Sean Kohn, Kyle Tseka, Angelo Vinje.

For College of Science, those recipients were:

Biology of a Changing Planet: “Ecological Impact of Invasive King Crabs in Antarctica,” Brittan Steffel.

Cellular & Molecular Biology: “The Role of Inorganic Pyrophosphatase in Alzheimer’s Disease,” Jasmin Pimentel.

Marine Science & Aquaculture: “Ontogeny of Ecomorphological Divergence in Sympatric North American Fishes,” Nathaniel Zbasnik.

Chemistry: “Progress on the Synthesis of a Novel Hydrazine Sensor,” Will Henderson.

Mathematical Sciences: “Frechet Differentiability in Optimal Control of nonlinear Dynamical Systems Applied to Lotka-Volterra type Competing Population Dynamics,” Greta Polo.

Physics: “Lightning Cable Coupling Simulations,” Erin Ballesty.

Space Sciences: “Kepler Extroplanetary System Period Ratio Characterization,” James Conaway.

Sustainability: “Catalyzing Sustainable Seafood Purchasing Opportunities in Brevard County,” Montana Steell.

Overall, the showcase included projects and posters developed by hundreds of undergraduate students, working on their own or in teams, from academic departments throughout the College of Science and the College of Engineering.

Participating students, who must conceive, research and/or design and implement their projects, gain hands-on experience in applying science or engineering knowledge and the fundamental principles of their respective majors.

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