The Brays Yourself team, from left: Kasia Nikiel, Avi Gori, Jinal Mehta, Julianne Crawford, Marie Gleichauf, Sam Greivell and sponsor Charlie Penland. Photo by An Le/Luxe Studio Productions
The Outstenting team, from left: faculty adviser Eric Richardson, Valerie Pinillos, John Chen, Margaret Watkins, Allen Zhao, Eric Yin, faculty adviser Matthew Elliott and clinical adviser Dr. Chester Koh of Texas Children’s Hospital. Photo by Brandon Martin
Team Wombox takes top Willy Revolution Award
For the first time, two senior engineering teams, Brays Yourself and Rice Outstenting, tied for the top prize in the George R. Brown Engineering Design Showcase, held April 14 at Rice University’s Tudor Fieldhouse. Each was granted the top prize of $5,000 for the Excellence in Engineering Award.
“Even simple solutions can make a big difference in people’s lives,” said Margaret Watkins of the Rice Outstenting team, which designed a device to simplify the process of removing ureteral stents from children. “This whole project was focused on streamlining it and making it as fast as possible.”
The win completed a great week for the team, which also won the grand prize for student design at the annual Design of Medical Devices Conference in Minneapolis April 12. “We’re absolutely amazed,” Watkins said.
Brays Yourself designed modifications to portions of the Brays Bayou channel in Southwest Houston and a redesign of the corresponding Greenbriar Bridge. The team’s goal was to reduce the 100-year floodplain throughout the bayou to protect commercial development and the Meyerland neighborhood, which suffered extensive damage in the 2015 Memorial Day flood.
“We are just really glad that we could bring attention to an issue that is really important to the people of Houston, and we’re honored to have been recognized for our work,” said team member Kasia Nikiel.
Prizes of $1,000 went to teams for:
Excellence in Freshman Engineering Design Award: OxyCal.
Excellence in Underclassman, Multiyear or Club Engineering Design Award: Express Yourself 2.0.
Excellence in Capstone Engineering Design Award: Tube Much; (com)post-haste; Pre-ictal Predictors (tie).
A prize of $750 went to:
Best Interdisciplinary Engineering Design Award: Just Keep Swimming.
Prizes of $500 went to teams in the following categories:
Best Conceptual or Computational Modeling Engineering Design Award: Yung Stat Squad.
Best Technology for Low-Resource Settings Design Award: Swole in Space.
Best Energy-Related Engineering Design Award: Control Release.
Best Medical Device Technology Award: RevIVe.
Best Environment and Sustainability Award: D.O.P.E. Engineering.
Best Gaming, Creative or Innovative Technology Award: Carpal Diem.
Best Aerospace or Transportation Technology Award: Shell Shock.
People’s Choice Award ($500): RevIVe.
Willy Revolution Award ($5,000): Team Wombox.
Willy Revolution Award ($2,500): Rice Eclipse.
The annual public event put on by the George R. 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.
