Design Day

2025 Design Day Details

April 21
Featheringill Hall
5–7 p.m.

About Design Day

Senior design courses provide students with experience working on real-world projects that involve design constraints, budgets, reviews and deadlines. Students learn about professionalism, teamwork, entrepreneurship, and resilience. As their projects take form, student teams interact with their industry and faculty advisers, hold meetings, write formal documentation and present their work. By the end of the academic year, the teams produce design processes, systems, prototypes, simulations, or virtual demonstrations. 

We recognize the value of senior projects mentored and supported by external advisors—industry representatives, entrepreneurs, nonprofit mentors, as well as research and clinical faculty. This experience allows you to work with Vanderbilt engineering seniors and discover what makes our students stand out among other applicants when it comes to employment and postgraduate study.

Contact Us

If you or your colleagues are interested in mentoring or sponsoring a project or would like to learn more, please contact us or fill out our Program Sponsor Inquiry Form.

Get in Touch
  • Thomas Withrow, Ph.D.

    Thomas Withrow, Ph.D.

    Assistant Dean for Design

    Mailing address:
    PMB 351826
    2301 Vanderbilt Place
    Nashville, TN 37235-1826

2024 Design Day Catalog

2025 Design Day Projects

Past Project Archive

View previous Design Day Projects in the Past Project Archive.

Design Day
  • Vanderbilt School of Engineering's Design Day showcased 48 innovative projects from senior students tackling real-world challenges.

    Vanderbilt School of Engineering's Design Day showcased 48 innovative projects from senior students tackling real-world challenges. 
  • Vanderbilt School of Engineering's Design Day showcased 48 innovative projects from senior students tackling real-world challenges.

    Team projects spanned from enrichment devices for Nashville Zoo's Sumatran tigers and Andean bears (mechanical engineering), ICU alarm fatigue and blood clot detection (biomedical engineering), to a coaxial drone for planetary landings, part of a NASA competition (interdisciplinary: mechanical and electrical and computer engineering).
  • Vanderbilt School of Engineering's Design Day showcased 48 innovative projects from senior students tackling real-world challenges.

    Many of these projects were sponsored by companies like Amazon Robotics and Nissan. 🚀🛠️

Design and Project Faculty

We take great pride in recognizing these faculty members for their outstanding contributions and excellence as instructors, advisers, and mentors in our senior design and project courses represented at Design Day 2024.

  • Walter Collett

    Walter Collett

    Professor of the Practice of Electrical and Computer Engineering

  • Russell Dunn

    Russell Dunn

    Professor of the Practice of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

  • Courtney Johnson

    Courtney Johnson

    Assistant Professor of the Practice of Technical Communications

  • Jason Mitchell

    Jason Mitchell

    Assistant Professor of the Practice of Mechanical Engineering

  • Marc Moore

    Marc Moore

    Associate Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering

  • Lori Troxel

    Lori Troxel

    Professor of the Practice of Civil and Environmental Engineering

  • Thomas Withrow

    Thomas Withrow

    Assistant Dean for Design; Professor of the Practice of Mechanical Engineering

  • Ranjana Sahai

    Ranjana Sahai

    Assistant Professor of the Practice of Mechanical Engineering

Thank You to Our Program Sponsors

Our Program Sponsors generously support the Vanderbilt School of Engineering's Design Day program. Thank you for providing your time, experience and financial support that help make our program a success.

  • Industry Mentor Affiliations
    • Airport Cooperative Research Program
    • Aurora Water
    • Barge Design Solutions, Inc.
    • BASF
    • Booz Allen
    • Boxing Resource Center
    • Carolina Stalite
    • Civic Design Center
    • Civil-Military Innovation Institute, Inc.
    • Cumberland River Compact
    • Dominion Water & Sanitation District, Colorado
    • Gresham Smith
    • Healing Innovations, Inc.
    • Irving Materials, Inc.
    • KCI Technologies, Inc.
    • KPFF Consulting Engineers
    • NASA
    • Nashville Zoo at Grassmere
    • Naval Surface Warfare Center, Panama City Division
    • Nissan North America
    • Norchem Corporation
    • PaintJet
    • Permobil
    • Polymer and Chemical Technologies, LLC
    • Sterling Ranch
    • StudyCommon
    • Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Division of Water Resources
    • The Product Development and Management Association
    • TM TKO, LLC
    • TrakRx
    • Utility Global
  • Vanderbilt University Sponsors
    • Vanderbilt Institute for Software Integrated Systems
    • Vanderbilt University, Facilities Department
    • Vanderbilt University, Plant Operations
    • Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine
    • Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit
    • Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Department of Anesthesiology
    • Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Department of Cardiac Surgery
    • Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology
    • Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Department of Vascular Surgery
    • Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology
    • Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Department of Diagnostic Radiology
    • Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, ASCE Student Chapter
    • Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Advanced Robotics and Control Laboratory
    • Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Biomedical Elasticity and Acoustic
    • Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Measurement Laboratory
    • Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Duvall Advanced Therapeutics Laboratory
    • Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering
    • Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
    • Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Laboratory

Sponsorship in no way implies endorsement, guarantee, warranty, or recommendation of the ideas or designs presented in this book or at Design Day.