Drill Team Six wins Engineering Design Showcase

Drill Team Six won the top prize in the Brown School of Engineering Design Showcase. From left, adviser and bioengineering lecturer Sabia Abidi, Hannah Jackson, Takanori Iida, Will Yarinsky, Ian Frankel, Babs Ogunbanwo, Byung-UK Kang and Matthew Elliott, a lecturer in mechanical engineering. Photo by An Le/Luxe Studio Productions


Sabia Abidi, Hannah Jackson, Takanori Iida, Will Yarinsky, Ian Frankel, Babs Ogunbanwo, Byung-UK Kang and Matthew Elliott, a lecturer in mechanical engineering.


Photo by An Le/Luxe Studio Productions


Drill Team Six won the top prize in the George R. Brown Engineering Design Showcase held April 11 at Rice University’s Tudor Fieldhouse. The Excellence in Engineering Award includes a prize of $5,000.

The team has created a device to simplify the placement of screws that secure metal rods to fractured bones in limbs. The process could cut the time, effort and number of X-rays necessary to complete the procedure.

“I don’t think any of us were really expecting it, so it’s an incredibly pleasant surprise,” said team member Ian Frankel. “A lot of hard work is paying off right now.”

“The prizes we were shooting for would be best medical technology or medical device, or the popular vote,” he said. “I mean, we’re a team of six people, and that’s six people with friends. Or possibly innovation in design because what we’re doing, nothing has been done like it before. But I don’t think we were expecting this.”

Other winners:

Willy Revolution Award for Outstanding Innovation ($3,500): BuoyBOTS.

Willy Revolution Award for Outstanding Innovation ($1,500): Take a Breather.

Willy Revolution Award for Outstanding Innovation ($500): UV Chamber.

Excellence in Capstone Engineering Design Award ($1,000): M&M.

Excellence in Capstone Engineering Design Award ($1,000): EasyScope.

Excellence in Independent, Multi-year or Club Engineering Design Award ($1,000): OxyMon.

Excellence in Freshman Engineering Design Award ($1,000): EquestriCAN.

Best Interdisciplinary Engineering Design Award ($750): Take A Breather.

Best Conceptual or Computational Modeling Engineering Design Award ($500): PIONEER.

Best Technology for Low-Resource Settings Design Award ($500): Clean Machine.

Best Energy-Related Engineering Design Award ($500): M&M and Crossing Streams.

Best Robotic Technology Award ($500): Mechatron.

Best Medical Technology Award ($500): Lapras.

Best Environment and Sustainability Engineering Design Award ($500): Flood.

Best Gaming, Creative or Innovative Technology Award ($500): Vignette.

Best Aerospace or Transportation Technology Award ($500): Club Rice Eclipse-Luna.

People’s Choice Award ($500): Biofuels Production Group.

The annual public event put on by the Brown School of Engineering and the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen features senior capstone design and other projects by Rice undergraduates. Read about all the participating teams at http://oedk.rice.edu/showcase.