Student Design & ResearchHands-on capstone projects igniting innovation and discovery

CROPP is a student-led traceable design concept to autonomously sustain plant growth in a biosecure environment for colonization missions. 

The shipping industry contributes to 3% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the rising threat of climate change, the industry needs drastic and immediate changes to continue the international trade that supports modern life. Recent regulations set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and fueled by the Paris Agreement have pushed the shipping industry to reduce CO2 emissions by 70% by 2050 and reach net zero by 2070. The most prominent methods for reducing carbon emissions were scrubber systems, which chemically separate the CO2 from the rest of the exhaust gas. Scrubbers are commercially ready and can remove 70% of CO2 from exhaust gas. The most effective solvents to use in scrubbers, based on energy requirements and CO2 removal, were monoethanolamine (MEA) and ammonia (NH3) based liquids. An emerging technology that shows promise in the industry is cryogenic carbon capture (CCC). This method physically separates the CO2 through a process of cooling and thawing. This appears to require half the energy of amine-based scrubber systems while separating up to 99% of CO2 from the exhaust gas stream. The transportation and storage of CO2 was also considered. Liquefied natural gas carriers were found to be easily retrofitted to transport liquified CO2, and carriers offloading fuel can onload waste CO2 on the return journey. The choice between carrier vessels and offshore pipelines for transportation is dependent on the volume of CO2 transported and the distance of transport. In general, distances less than 500 km are better suited for offshore pipelines, while greater distances are best suited for carrier vessels. Many options exist for the long-term storage of CO2, including the utilization of CO2 in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations. EOR offers a long-term solution for CO2 storage by sequestering the CO2 in basaltic reservoirs and solidifying into the source rock. This creates an opportunity to resell the captured CO2 to oil companies for up to $18/t. 

CROPP is a student-led traceable design concept to autonomously sustain plant growth in a biosecure environment for colonization missions. 

This research aims to produce a model system for the siphoning of certain inorganic elements from extraterrestrial regoliths and ultimately contribute to a bioregenerative life support system on Mars. 

CROPP is a student-led traceable design concept to autonomously sustain plant growth in a biosecure environment for colonization missions. 

The goal of this project was to design and create a salivary amylase concentration analyzer, which will determine amylase concentration in human saliva. Recent research has found that amylase concentration can be correlated with many different physiological imbalances, like stress, pain, type 1 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. 

How will our world be able to sustainably thrive if unsustainable sources are continuously being used within the energy sectors of governments? ExxonMobil has provided a process that helps lead us away from fossil fuels and towards a future, where going faster is only a challenge and not a burden on our blue planet. Our team has simulated and costed a new biodiesel process that utilizes vegetable oils and animal fats as a feedstock, as well as novel BIDW, or Bio-Isomerization Dewaxing catalyst. This new and improved catalyst prevents cracking of iso-paraffins during the isomerization process which generates the most efficient diesel while also improving cold flow properties such as cloud point, the temperature at which the solution will begin forming wax crystals, and pour point, another temperature set where the solution will completely solidify and become unuseful. 

The project mission is to design a Silver LEED certified Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stop that will enhance the US transportation sector. The structure will be analyzed for project planning, structural design, geotechnically, transportation analysis and water resources. This station entails a waiting area, a convenience store and sustainable quick charging. The project features a two-story convenience store, 39 electric vehicle charging stations, a solar farm and a retention pond. The first floor of the convenience store incorporates many fuel station features such as drink coolers, merchandise aisles, mechanical rooms and battery storage. The second floor is geared towards relaxation with an entertainment lounge and an eatery. The EV chargers will be covered by a prefabricated metal canopy system. A major challenge of this project has been that there is limited information on EV charging facilities of this caliber. This project is the first of its kind in the state of Florida, and hence it requires out-of-the-box thinking to develop estimates for consumption, usage, and traffic counts. 

Currently, computers gather their entropy from real world sources of randomness such as IDE timing, mouse movements, or the timing between keystrokes on a keyboard. However, with increasing computer processing power, hacker’s ability to predict the output of these sources has become far more probable. Additionally, it is possible that these sources of entropy may become compromised by attackers. This is where Project Thor comes in. Simply put, Project Thor provides an additional truly random source of entropy that can be mixed with other sources to build more diverse and secure entropy pools for operating systems. This way, if one source of entropy were to become compromised, an operating systems entropy pool would still be secure. 

The Data Acquisition Device (DAD) is a product capable of handling multiple sensors at once to display, record, or plot the incoming data. The DAD is the proprietary software that is in charge of collecting data, however, the main collectors are the Kit Integrated Devices (KID) that are designed to collect various types of data. To remove the limitation of wires for data collection, Our project aims to make the KIDs communicate with Bluetooth. This allows the seamless scalability of multiple KIDs recording real-world data while the DAD is processing the sent data. 

The United States Navy approached the team looking for a mechanism capable of lifting and rotating a half-ton cylinder to/from a vertical orientation, as well as rotating to/from a horizontal orientation. The purpose of the device is to install the aforementioned cylinder on a predetermined fixture through the use of purely mechanical means that can be easily operated as well as transported within the warehouse space. Aside from the cylinder rotational operations, the major deliverables, as requested by the Navy are as follows: 

● Full mobility of the entire device 

● Device must preclude use of any and all electrical systems 

● Maintain a soft budget of $7,500 with a hard cap of an additional $2,500. 

● The device must lift the test cylinder while maintaining a YFOS of 1.5 and an UFOS of 2.0 in both vertical and horizontal orientations. 

● The team must provide their own test cylinder with a diameter of 36”, height of 21”, weight of 1,020 lb (+/- 20%), and center of gravity 5” from the top 

● The only contact made with the cylinder by the device is within a 5” interface zone located 5” from the top of the cylinder, exerting a maximum pressure of 35psi. 

Dielectric breakdowns, i.e., electric discharges, can be formulated through Paschen’s law as non-thermal, selfsustained discharges occurring in high voltage, low current, and low-pressure conditions between two parallel plate electrodes. Although Paschen’s law has been adapted for various gas mixtures, it fails to account for electrode orientation and material type. The voltage required to initiate an electric discharge is commonly characterized by the Engel-Steenbeck equation. However, we propose to develop a new formalism for the equations adapted to the constraints of electrode geometry and material type, as well as an experimental setup for its validation. Using Florida Tech’s micro Terrestrial Atmosphere Discharge Simulator (μTADS), the critical (initiation) voltage is measured at specific pressures and distances in air and CO2 mixtures comparable to Earth and Mars atmospheres. 

The shipping industry contributes to 3% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the rising threat of climate change, the industry needs drastic and immediate changes to continue the international trade that supports modern life. Recent regulations set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and fueled by the Paris Agreement have pushed the shipping industry to reduce CO2 emissions by 70% by 2050 and reach net zero by 2070. The most prominent methods for reducing carbon emissions were scrubber systems, which chemically separate the CO2 from the rest of the exhaust gas. Scrubbers are commercially ready and can remove 70% of CO2 from exhaust gas. The most effective solvents to use in scrubbers, based on energy requirements and CO2 removal, were monoethanolamine (MEA) and ammonia (NH3) based liquids. An emerging technology that shows promise in the industry is cryogenic carbon capture (CCC). This method physically separates the CO2 through a process of cooling and thawing. This appears to require half the energy of amine-based scrubber systems while separating up to 99% of CO2 from the exhaust gas stream. The transportation and storage of CO2 was also considered. Liquefied natural gas carriers were found to be easily retrofitted to transport liquified CO2, and carriers offloading fuel can onload waste CO2 on the return journey. The choice between carrier vessels and offshore pipelines for transportation is dependent on the volume of CO2 transported and the distance of transport. In general, distances less than 500 km are better suited for offshore pipelines, while greater distances are best suited for carrier vessels. Many options exist for the long-term storage of CO2, including the utilization of CO2 in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations. EOR offers a long-term solution for CO2 storage by sequestering the CO2 in basaltic reservoirs and solidifying into the source rock. This creates an opportunity to resell the captured CO2 to oil companies for up to $18/t. 

Successful plant growth aboard the International Space Station (ISS), or on a future lunar or Martian colony, is crucial to the sustainability of such missions. While plant growth in microgravity or in regolith simulants is possible, the challenges associated with these conditions are significantly stressful on the plants themselves. This results in decreased growth and greater susceptibility to disease. The incorporation of plant-growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) into the growth systems in these environments has the potential to significantly improve plant growth, the yield of edible biomass, and improve disease resistance. Prior work has identified a number of potential PGPB isolated from the surfaces of plants grown on the ISS, providing a population with spaceflight history from which to develop a beneficial plant microbiome. Many PGPB couple the activation of one or more of their beneficial behaviors to increased cell density, a phenomenon known as quorum sensing (QS). In Gram-negative bacteria, QS is regulated by the presence of N-acyl-L-homoserine lactones (AHLs), the most well characterized class of QS signals to date. Here we investigated the QS potential of 11 of the putative PGPB isolated from the VEGGIE plant growth system. Using the KYC55 AHL-reporter strain of Agrobacterium tumefaciens we confirmed that several of the species isolated from this study were capable of QS. Our findings help to elucidate the mechanisms by which PGPB may regulate mutualistically beneficial behaviors which we can leverage to improve plant growth systems off-world. 

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurological disorder most prevalent in individuals 65 and older. AD is notorious for memory loss, cognitive decline, and impairment of judgment. Anatomically, parietal and cerebral cortex atrophy are indicative of the condition. While a variety of cognitive tests are used for diagnosis, MRI usage is becoming increasingly popular, as it can be a non-invasive and inexpensive way to detect the disease. AD currently has no cure, but early detection and intervention can help to slow its progression. Automating the diagnosis process could save both time and money. 

In the project, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN’s) are utilized for image classification purposes to classify the data set of 6400 brain MRI images into their respective classes: non-demented, very mild demented, mild demented, and moderate demented. 

Caulerpa prolifera is a historically abundant macroalgae in the Indian River Lagoon (IRL) and provides many of the same habitat functions as seagrasses, including sediment stabilization, nutrient uptake, and shelter for juvenile fish. Its tolerance of high nutrient-low light conditions, use of water column and benthic nutrients, and role as a foundation species make it an excellent candidate for cultivation and nutrient removal in the IRL. This project focused on evaluating C. prolifera as a nutrient removal treatment by quantifying C. prolifera’s uptake of ammonium (NH4+), nitrate and nitrite (NO3- and NO2--), and total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) and monitoring the treatment’s effect on pH and dissolved oxygen (DO). C. prolifera segments were collected from the IRL and cultivated in a flow-through aquaculture system with pH-neutral sand, filtered estuary water, and full-spectrum light (Fig.1). Since C. prolifera’s morphology is light-dependent, only cultivated new growth was transferred to the flow-through treatment and control chambers.