ME Senior Capstone Team Wins Student Manufacturing Design Competition
The Northwestern project demonstrated a desktop robotic English wheel system
A Department of Mechanical Engineering senior capstone team took first place at the 2023 Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference’s Student Manufacturing Design Competition.
Northwestern teams have placed in the top three of the competition before, but this is the first time a group from the University earned the top spot. The team received a $1,000 prize.
Held earlier this summer at the collocated American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) conferences, the student contest was open to both undergraduate and graduate students. The Northwestern project demonstrated a desktop robotic English wheel system related to the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing, Moving from Evolution to Revolution (HAMMER), and was presented at the conference by Margaret Gao, who recently finished her capstone and is scheduled to graduate this fall.
Supervised by doctoral student Derick Andres Suarez and capstone instructor Michael Beltran, Gao’s teammates were Kayla Blas, Ben Forbes, Sam Griswold, Elaine Liu, Dash Slamowitz, and Lukas Wolf.