Standing before a crowd of his peers with a robot arm and a capacitance-based force transducer, UChicago engineering fourth-year Rishi Chebrolu talked about both the science and the economics behind the technology.
“It costs one cent to make this sensor instead of the hundreds or thousands of dollars to make the industry-standard sensor,” he told the audience.
Chebrolu and his teammates Vincent Chan and Sam Rubin were one of 15 teams of fourth-year students in UChicago’s molecular engineering program at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering who presented their final projects in the Engineering Design capstone course last week. The two-quarter course pairs each team with industry mentors who help guide the students in turning ideas into products and processes that can work in the real world.
“Any challenge we ran into, our mentors always had an expert insight into either its source or potential alternatives,” said fourth-year Aileen Kauffman. “They were also always instrumental in ensuring that we never got discouraged, as it’s all a part of science.”
The current cohort of students tackled topics ranging from improved ultrasound techniques and anti-microbial coatings for architectural glass to self-optimizing bioreactors, vanadium redox flow batteries, and heat pump clothes driers.
In each case, the students had to improve both the tech and the technique, solving complicated scientific problems while always keeping an eye toward viable, market-ready products capable of reaching the people who need them.
“The Engineering Design class helps you develop an engineer’s intuition,” Rubin said.
Growing major, growing course
The course is a requirement for molecular engineering majors, a program that continues to grow year over year at UChicago. Due to that growth, the cohort that presented their final innovations last week was the largest ever to take the class, with presentations spilling out over two hours and three rooms.
“It has been truly gratifying to witness the remarkable growth of the program, evolving from a handful of projects during its initial implementation to now encompassing a diverse array of partner organizations,” said Laboratory Director for Molecular Engineering Xiaoying Liu, one of the course’s instructors.
In addition to the four UChicago instructors – Liu, Director of Experiential Learning Mustafa O. Guler, Master of Engineering Program Director Terry Johnson and Director of Undergraduate Studies Mark Stoykovich – students learn from industry mentors who have first-hand experience in bringing technological innovations to market.
Nicole Wroblewski of Fuchs Lubricants Co. was one of those mentors. She said working with the students was “a fantastic experience.”
“The students have conducted themselves professionally and we have been very impressed,” Wroblewski said. “Their passion for learning has been contagious and inspiring.”
Zach Zeurcher of “stealth startup” Gr@vity Inc. said working with students was a good way to give back as well as fun – but that it was more than that. Seeing the students’ creativity triggered new ideas for his own team.
“It was also valuable to us,” Zeurcher said. “There’s only so much time and resources that any group has available to prototype the very beginning stages of different application ideas. We get to learn through them.”
Fourth-year student Bethel Kifle said the capstone brought together four years of study while being different from any other course.
"Engineering Design was different because it provided us with the opportunity to explore the responsibilities of an engineer," she said. "As part of a team, we were fully immersed in the engineering design process, progressing through the stages of ideation, prototype development, testing and assessing of our designs, and eventually presenting our findings."
Stoykovich, Guler and Liu created the Engineering Design capstone course in 2018 to tackle a need for students to look beyond classroom work and also to create vital professional contacts that will help throughout their careers.
“Any good engineering program will teach students how to excel in the classroom,” Stoykovich said. “What makes this course – and UChicago’s engineering program as a whole – so exciting is the focus on real-world applications of that work. These students are going to take what they learned at the University of Chicago’s molecular engineering program and literally change the world.”
Learn more about undergraduate molecular engineering at UChicago