APRIL 26, 2024 — Senior UTSA engineering majors showcased their solutions to many of humanity’s grand challenges at yesterday’s Spring Tech Symposium. Hosted by the Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design (Klesse College), the trademark competition featured projects and ideas from more than 300 students on 87 teams. Ultimately, the top three winning projects in the Design II category included a device that diagnoses diabetic retinopathy, a new product for flatfoot surgery and an innovative implant to repair ligament ruptures in dogs.
EyeSpy Innovators features the work of Zachary Perkins, Brandon Bauer, Jack Thibodeau, Luis Flores and Sai Vijay Trilochan Tadi, who took first place for their project “RetinaSpy,” which detects diabetic retinopathy. The condition is a noninflammatory disease of the retina involving blood vessel damage in the light sensitive tissue that is linked to diabetes. The device uses artificial intelligence (AI) Image Recognition to screen for diabetic retinopathy. It is a fast, cost-effective and accessible diagnostic device, ideal for primary and community health care centers. The student team will receive a $4,000 cash prize for its first-place finish.
First place winners EyeSpy Innovators won a $4,000 cash prize for developing a cost-effective device that detects diabetic retinopathy.
Second place went to BioMedyx Technologies, featuring Maria Lizbeth Gonzalez Nunez, Athena Santi, Maisha Ahmed and Ryan Dennett for their project “Soft Tissue Anchor.” Pes planus, or flatfoot, affects millions of people annually. Currently, the corrective procedure utilizes soft tissue anchor sutures to create a bond between two parts of the foot, but that procedure can lead to complications. This project uses a plate-like device to do the same job as the sutures in a more reliable and effective way. BioMedyx will receive a $3,000 cash prize.
BioMedyx Technologies developed a new way to correct flat feet, and won the second-place prize of $3,000 for their innovation.
Coming in third place, Müttley Crüe and their project, “Dynamic Compression System for Enhanced Fixation in Canine Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomies” revolutionizes a prevalent procedure for dogs. Members on this project include Jason Bracco, Julian Montes, Andrew Salinas and Damian Valdivieso. Their TPLO (Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy) procedure helps dogs with torn cranial cruciate ligaments, a common injury to a dog’s knee. This new product introduces an innovative implant made of materials that minimize surgery time and invasiveness. This student team will receive a $2,000 cash prize.
The aptly named Müttley Crüe team is innovating treatment for ligament ruptures in dogs and took home third-place prize of $2,000.
Five Design II teams also received awards of excellence at the symposium. Three Design I teams were recognized as overall winners for their first-semester projects and each received a $1,000 prize.
“It is exciting to walk around the symposium each year and see how the projects and designs continue to get better,” said Eric Brey, interim dean of the Klesse College. “I love seeing how much energy, passion, and work students put into their projects. Our faculty and professional mentors do an incredible job preparing students for the real world of engineering.”
The event was bustling with students, sponsors, local industry organization representatives and proud faculty and family members. Senior Design I students presented their concepts through posters and will work on these same projects as they enter Senior Design II next semester and develop working prototypes.
All engineering entries were judged by professionals in each major category.
This semester a total of $12,000 in cash prizes was awarded.
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