2018-19 Projects
For more information on any project, please contact
Toni Boggan or email the project's Faculty Advisor.
ENSC 01 2D Seepage Model
Team: Collin Connelley, Christina Languell, Ryan Nguyen
Faculty Advisor: Mark Muszynski email
Sponsor: CEDE
At the end of this project, we will create a working 2D Seepage Model to be used by Gonzaga University for the SEAS department.
ENSC 03 Driving Optimization for Autonomous Vehicles
Team: Samuel Atkinson, Blake Casagranda, Victoria Sample, Cheyenne Stefan, Brady Whetsel
Faculty Advisor: Debra Offill email
Sponsor: CEDE
The project will result in a data-collecting and path-mapping vehicle capable of autonomous driving and optimizing its speed.
ENSC 04 Energy Storage in the NW
Team: Erik Crouch, Joshua Holcomb, Nathan Jamsa, Shawn Marshall-Spitzbart
Faculty Advisor: Andy Johnston email
Sponsor: CEDE
The goal of our project is to compare three known long-term energy storage methods and demonstrate that hydrogen is a feasible option. Then we will construct a scale model an airplane hydrogen fuel tank to showcase the versatility of hydrogen storage.
ENSC 05 Hold That Cup of Joe
Team: Breyana George, Ivan Jimenez, Kendall Monson, Payton Rothlin
Faculty Advisor: Noel Bormann email
Sponsor: CEDE
This project will be using wasted coffee grounds, turned into activated carbon by the process of pyrolysis, to filter water from the Spokane River -- specifically to remove heavy metals from the water to make it more drinkable.
ENSC 06 Hybrid Rocket Engine Test Instrument
Team: David Barnes, Nicholas Fritschler, Jordan Haliday, Gabriel Leopold
Faculty Advisor: Marc Baumgardner email
Sponsor: CEDE
The goal of this project is to produce a working prototype of a Hybrid Rocket Motor Test Instrument that would pique engineering students’ interests in fields that are not currently represented by the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
ENSC 07 Infinity Ladder
Team: Jarid Bennett, Dillon Bull, Kimbrell Larouche
Faculty Advisor: Jacob Laete email
Sponsor: CEDE
Our project is to design and build a safe, cost-effective, revolving ladder system for exercise purposes.
ENSC 08 Liquid Cooled Brakes
Team: William Brazeau, Thomas Kourtis, Mark Luciano
Faculty Advisor: Jim Weston email
Sponsor: CEDE
Our team's goal is to develop and show analysis that our liquid brake cooling concept is a possible application to the automotive industry, optimizing brake temperatures to improve brake performance and durability.
ENSC 09 Modular Children's Prosthetic
Team: Luis Gonzalez-Flores, Wesley Houser, Matthew Lugo, Michael Shiraishi
Faculty Advisor: Rich Thomas email
Sponsor: CEDE
For our project, we are trying to retrofit existing 3D-printed arms to achieve higher level function, with the goal of aiding disabled children in their stages of growth. We aim to achieve this by constructing a capsule, containing all the electronic and mechanical components, that can be exchanged between different-sized arms.
ENSC 11 Personal Desalination Device
Team: Joshua Aspinwall, Sebastian Berven, Mikaella Croskrey, Ross Leung-Wagner, Matthew Moen
Faculty Advisor: Dave Moss email
Sponsor: CEDE
The project seeks to ensure that communities vulnerable to a changing global climate can still maintain healthy levels of water consumption. Our goal is to create a personal desalination device capable of providing the WHO minimum of 20L of water per day in under two hours, ensuring a widespread capability to produce safe drinking water from seawater.
ENSC 12 Roasting Efficiency (Coffee)
Team: Christopher Rizzuti, Daniel Seats, Andrew Swift, Christopher Ward
Faculty Advisor: Marc Baumgardner email
Sponsor: CEDE
We will be designing a steam turbine for small, niche applications. This will include extensive research as well as modeling, construction and testing of the product.
ENSC 14 Trafixx: Smart Traffic Grid
Team: Trevor Flynn, Nicholas Hopwood, Tyler Willis
Faculty Advisor: Shane Pacini email
Sponsor: CEDE
The goal of the Trafixx Project is to maximize the efficiency and safety of the traffic grid. To accomplish this goal, we will develop a complete system that will replace the current signals and establish a smart traffic grid.
ENSC 20 Putting Food Waste to Work
Team: Philip Dantas Whitney, Christopher Klahr, Drew Mosman, Miles Sustad
Faculty Advisor: John Cleary email
Sponsor: WA Dept of Ecology
Investigate the technical and economic feasibility of a campus-scale, two-stage food waste digester. Compare the proposed with the current municipal-size wastewater treatment to composting handling of food waste in terms of energy yield/use, nutrient capture and carbon cycling.
ENSC 26 Fiber-Based Construction Materials
Team: Anthony Adamek, Erik Allen, Cassidy Lomas, Coral Ng
Faculty Advisor: Lauren Heine email
Sponsor: Northwest Green Chemistry and ZILA Works
Students will evaluate and optimize formulations of processed industrial hemp hurd with lime binder to create 'hempcrete' for building walls for a 10' x 10' shed.
ENSC 30 Generator Trailer (EV Range Extender)
Team: Clayton Larson, Robert Levine, Corey Wallyn
Faculty Advisor: Bryan Woodbury email
Sponsor: Commuter Cars
Complete an existing project consisting of a Boeing 737 alternator, Honda motorcycle engine, and small trailer to extend the range of an electric vehicle. At full power, the alternator can produce 30kW, enough for freeway cruising.
ENSC 31 Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy Air Monitor
Team: Jordan Cossette, Patrick Jauregui, Theodore Mangrum, Crystal Murray-Weston, Joseph Wilson
Faculty Advisor: Art Miller email
Sponsor: NIOSH
The mining industry is in need of a portable air monitor with the ability to quantify hazardous airborne particulate matter in order to keep their miners healthy and safe. We need a team of students to assist in developing components of such an air monitor, such as the sample collection system, a user interface, or a multivariate model to speciate and quantify different particulates.
ENSC 32 Research and Innovation in Molten Aluminum
Team: Cameron Aishin, Gabriel Edge, Zachary Hill, Isabella Verdugo
Faculty Advisor: Gabe Achenbach email
Sponsor: Novelis
The project will focus around innovation in the solidification of molten aluminum. Students will be researching new technologies and demonstrating potential applications in industry.
ENSC 33 Scrap Tub Dumper
Team: Michael Bacon, Olivia Brandel, Kevin Wall
Faculty Advisor: Christopher Nicol email
Sponsor: Kaiser Aluminum
The goal of the project is to design a material handling device for dumping tubs containing 8-12K lbs of aluminum scrap. The design will include fabrication and installation drawings and a 3D prototype for evaluation purposes. Students will also provide a cost analysis for future funding requests.
ENSC 34 Good Vibrations
Team: Zachary Fackelman, Quinn Nash, Nathaniel Wiley
Faculty Advisor: Timothy Fitzgerald email
Sponsor: CEDE
Design, build, and commission a slip table for use with the lab’s existing MB Dynamics Cal50 shaker.
ENSC 35 HVAC Design for Building 15
Team: Abraham Hobson, Jacob Nabors, Matthew Richardson-Holzgang, Sean Smith
Faculty Advisor: Anthony Schoen email
Sponsor: MW Consulting Engineers
Create Design Development level HVAC and Hydronic drawings for the design of a building system.
ENSC 36 Boot Sole Glue Materials Study
Team: William Barber, Alexandra Burke, August McCambridge, John Minder
Faculty Advisor: Christopher Wood email
Sponsor: Nicks Boots
Nicks Boots has a long-term goal to reduce hazardous chemicals used in their boot making process, specifically the chlorinated glue used for the NFPA certified wildfire firefighting boots. This project would be focused on establishing the strength of materials baseline performance data of their current product.
ENSC 37 Carbon Fiber Repurposing, part II
Team: Benjamin Eiden, Julian Kenton-Braden, Robert Prouty, Tris Tanaka
Faculty Advisor: Gerry Snow email
Sponsor: Boeing
Design and fabrication of a tool capable of non-automated layup of pre-preg composite with similar properties to an Automated Tape Layup Machine.
ENSC 38 Point of Care Diagnostic Reader
Team: Siniva Areta, Megan Larson, Navath Nhan, Megan Seifert
Faculty Advisor: Jeff Nolting email
Sponsor: GenPrime
Develop a camera-based, battery-operated mobile diagnostic test reader. We would expect to have a working prototype at the end of the project.
ENSC 39 Lug Torque Ergonomics
Team: Jason Bru, Michael Tome, Nicholas Tranquill
Faculty Advisor: Colleen Nolting email
Sponsor: UTC
The design team needs to provide a system solution combining optimized SLTM fixture design concept(s) and an operator assist for loading and unloading the fixtures which combined will reduce the risk of injury due to non-ergonomic lifting / straining.
ENSC 40 Axe Shock Control
Team: Brandon DuBois, Daniel Fredrickson, Conor Leydon, Jesus Lopez
Faculty Advisor: Timothy Fitzgerald email
Sponsor: Buck Knives, Inc.
Understand and define the physics related to impact while using an axe to cut wood. Create a measurement tool to validate the hypothesis and prove out the measurement tool. Validate existing concepts that may control shock when using an axe. If time allows develop additional concepts to measure.
ENSC 41 Knife Blade Opening Rate Meter
Team: Christopher Hatten, Jeremy Hoefer, Daniel Kates, John O'Connor
Faculty Advisor: Sam Shoemaker email
Sponsor: Buck Knives, Inc.
Development of a folding knife opening rate meter that measures the rotational rate of the blade at various positions as it opens. The meter would need to display the blade rotational rate to the operator, as well as record the test rate data in a designated log file, either to some type of accessible internal storage or a connected PC type device.
ENSC 42 MultiPurpose Layup & Cure Cart
Team: Josef Best, Janelle Maguire, Ashley Wood
Faculty Advisor: Bob Reed email
Sponsor: Unitech Composites
The team will develop and fabricate an adjustable height cart capable of supporting layup tooling during hand layup, autoclave cure, and oven post cure.
ENSC 43 Wall Assembly Improvements
Team: Jacqueline Gazett, Emily Harrison, Ryan Matunas
Faculty Advisor: Ryan Leahy email
Sponsor: Haakon
Identify areas for improvement of wall sub-assembly construction of custom HVAC equipment and engineer and implement changes to improve safety, efficiency, and quality through the department.
ENSC 44 thermoplastic Composites for Aerospace
Team: Delaney Hall, Michael Hoeller, Monica Ripple, Sean Sakai
Faculty Advisor: Pat Ferro email
Sponsor: Triumph Composite Systems
Evaluate thermoplastic composite laminate mechanical properties and convert an existing metallic design into an optimized composite part using advanced analysis methods.
ENSC 50 Robotic Ag Implement
Team: Grant Hjelte, Paxton Malek, Daniel Mobley, Arellano Tani, Aaron Han Wong
Faculty Advisor: Shane Pacini email
Sponsor: Dryland SA LLC
Research, model and demonstrate a control system for autonomous agriculture supply hopper(s) to preform the job of reloading fuel, seed, liquid chemicals, water or fertilizer into autonomous self driving ag implements.
ENSC 51 Helical Antenna Array
Team: Henadz Krukovich, Jeffrey Varness, Zachary Weber
Faculty Advisor: Bob Conley email
Sponsor: SARL
Design and build a colinear, scalable, dual polarized, center fed array consisting of helical flex circuit antenna elements.
ENSC 53 Ebike Traction Control
Team: Liam Jones, Joan Llompart Babler, Alex Tang
Faculty Advisor: Debra Offill email
Sponsor: CEDE
Electric Bicycles, or EBikes, travel at high speeds with more momentum than traditional bikes, but lack effective braking systems. This project will demonstrate the use of electric bike motors as generators to augment existing brakes, providing safer, more reliable braking. The anticipated challenge in this project will be "power electronics" - circuit design for switching and converting electrical power using semiconductors.