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.
If you or your colleagues are interested in mentoring or sponsoring a project or to learn more, please contact me:
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Thomas Withrow, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean for Design
Mailing address:
PMB 351826
2301 Vanderbilt Place
Nashville, TN 37235-1826- 615-322-3594
- 514 Olin Hall
5-7 p.m. in Featheringill Hall
2024 Design Day Projects
Past Project Archive
View previous Design Day Projects in the Past Project Archive.
2024 Design Day: From zoos to space, engineering seniors demo devices and apps to solve clients’ problems
Spotlight: Our 2024 Design Day
What if a manual wheelchair could be turned into a powered wheelchair by adding a bicycle-style wheel attachment with steering and braking control? A team of biomedical engineering seniors designed an accessory to an existing chair that currently limits steering to traditional hand rim turning. Their accessory streamlines both steering and braking.
See this project and 47 more at the Vanderbilt School of Engineering’s Design Day 2024. Seniors in six departments have spent the 2023-2024 academic year on capstone projects to solve sponsors’ problems. The annual design celebration is in Featheringill Hall Monday, April 22, from 5-7 p.m. and it is open to the public. A Design Day catalog features project descriptions.
The Nashville Zoo is a perennial sponsor of design projects. This year, mechanical engineering teams designed enrichment devices for animals. One is a forage feeding device to stimulate the natural behaviors of Sumatran tigers and Andean bears. A launching device uses a catapult-like throwing method to scatter food 10-15 feet away. Another mechanical engineering team designed a climbing structure for ring-tailed lemurs. Steps, grapevine ropes, mesh climbing, feeding and jumping spots and sunbathing platforms offer lemurs ways to engage in their natural behaviors.
Biomedical engineering teams have tackled issues of ICU alarm fatigue, a protective carrier insert for specimen transport, and an adhesive wearable device for blood clot detection. A chemical engineering team optimized clinical mixing of orthopedic bone cement. A team in electrical and computer engineering designed a coaxial drone for planetary landings. The drone is an integral part of a Vanderbilt rocket that will compete in the 2024 NASA University Student Launch Initiative.
“Design courses provide students with experience working on real-world projects that involve design constraints, budgets, reviews and deadlines. Students learned about professionalism, teamwork, entrepreneurship, and resilience,” said Thomas Withrow, assistant dean for design and associate professor of the practice of mechanical engineering. “Our design events have always been a celebration of all the lessons learned during their engineering educations.”
Design projects were completed in partnership with a multitude of companies and institutions, including Amazon Robotics, Nissan North America, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Barge Design Solutions, Sterling Ranch Development Company, Booz Allen Hamilton, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and many more. Multiple Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt University Medical Center departments sponsored projects and provided advisers as well.
Several design prizes are awarded at the end of the spring semester.
Other projects include:
- Water network design software for the Sterling Ranch community in Colorado
- Automated installation of speakers on Nissan Pathfinder vehicles
- A low-cost autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle
- Structural design to expand housing for homeless individuals while they recover from hospitalization
- A grocery shopping tool for senior adults
- A dual jet bridge for boarding to reduce gate time at airports
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 2023.
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Walter Collett
Professor of the Practice of Electrical and Computer Engineering
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Russell Dunn
Professor of the Practice of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
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Courtney Johnson
Assistant Professor of the Practice of Technical Communications
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Jason Mitchell
Research Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
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Marc Moore
Associate Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering
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Scott Guelcher
Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
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Lori Troxel
Professor of the Practice of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Thomas Withrow
Assistant Dean for Design; Associate Professor of the Practice of Mechanical Engineering
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Ranjana Sahai
Assistant Professor of the Practice of Mechanical Engineering
Thank You to Our Sponsors
Our 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.
Sponsorship in no way implies endorsement, guarantee, warranty, or recommendation of the ideas or designs presented in this book or at Design Day.