Senior Design

As part of the biomedical engineering program, all students complete senior design. During this course, students are paired with a sponsor in which they act as consultants. I was partnered with the Sivarasu Lab at the University of Cape Town in South Africa in one of the first ever international projects. There is a large wealth disparity in Cape Town which leads to issues with accessibility in medical devices including tissue dilators. My team was tasked with designing an accessible tissue dilator for use after anorectal surgery in infants that is easily operable by caretakers. This course required the same amount of time as a part time job (about 20 hours a week) which easily made it the most challenging and involved class I have taken at UD. However, I was able to explore what it would be like to have a career as a biomedical engineer working in industry and I put all my skills to the test. 

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I was lucky enough to have been grouped with an outstanding group of students. Each of us are highly motivated and gave the project everything to make sure it was successful. We didn't necessarily have defined roles and all just divided up work when it was needed. This led to me being responsible for the Gantt chart and helping with the CAD designs and 3D printing of our prototypes. This was one of the first group projects where I was not designated as a project manager and I am grateful for having this experience. I learned to be more open minded to other people's ideas, be adaptable when things didn't go as expected, and how to be accommodating to sponsor requests. As I said, this project was very successful and I couldn't be more proud. Our project is highlighted in a UDaily article, we won the cell and tissue award and were nominated for the chairman's choice award at the end of the semester, and are entering the design in a medical devices conference. Our final report is linked along with a device pitch and a virtual version of our presentation included below.