Our graduates have an entrepreneurial mindset and skillset, as well as relationships that are invaluable to developing innovative and impactful solutions to today's problems.
2023 Projects
MEMBERS: Devin Adams, Aaron Jones, Sarah Baskins
ADVISOR: John Harrison
Have you ever wanted to make some extra cash, but found selling products online to be to difficult? Have you ever been overwhelmed by all of the different configurations and options when trying to list a new product online? Be Your Own Boss, or BYOB, is a web application that allows entrepreneurs one centralized location to develop, design, and upload print on demand products to public shop websites (Etsy, Amazon, etc.) Instead of manually copying and pasting listings from one shop site to another, BYOB distributes listings to shop websites automatically. Users can add their designs, titles, tags, colors, and other important information, and upload the customized product automatically in seconds. BYOB integrates with both Printify as the print provider, and Etsy as the shop website, and has potential to expand to other online shop hosting sites in the future. BYOB also offers guidance to not only start an online business, but also how to gain an advantage in the online marketplace through organized documentation and videos. Using BYOB, individuals can upload print on demand products to their online stores in an easy, consistent, and time efficient manner, drastically reducing the time invested in shop owning.
MEMBERS: Treavor McLeland, Jennifer Hoefler, Vindya Kumari, Abdulaziz Alsaihati, Angelina Tilson
ADVISOR: Dr. Kim Cluff
A child’s health is an important matter to parents as they want their child to be as safe as possible. One harmful activity that a child does is sticking foreign objects into any orifices and one of those being their nasal cavity. When this happens, the child can inhale the object making it a choking hazard or it can cause an infection. Our device will use a vacuum suction to safely remove the foreign object from the nasal cavity of the child. This device could also save time and money as it can remove the need for parents to go to the hospital.
MEMBERS: Ashley Bland, Anna Tri, Dennis Howard, Cindy Mai, Shay Weigel, Alex Zachgo, Parker Tims
ADVISOR: Dr. Kim Cluff
Hand injuries are a common and serious event that leads to fingertip amputations with incidence rates of about 7.5/100,000. In the US, there are about 45,000 finger amputation surgeries performed annually. Work related injuries that involve hand tools with blades lead to many hand injuries. Treatment will vary depending on the severity of the injury. Current treatments include partial or complete amputations of the fingertip followed by a prosthetic finger and physical therapy. Individuals who opt to work with a prosthetist may find that there are limited and expensive options for single prosthetic fingers. In addition, these fingers may lack full range of motion and function. Currently, available prosthetic fingers are solely mechanical and rely on the movements of the rest of the hand. This process keeps the prosthetic from mimicking the independent movements of a real finger. The purpose of this project is to give that independence back to the amputated finger(s). This will be accomplished by making prosthetic fingers capable of their own movement through the use of internal motors. These internal motors will be controlled using a sleeve on the forearm and elbow area that reads the EMG signals of the flexor digitorum profundus. These signals will be communicated from the sleeve to the internal motors through a Bluetooth connection provided via a microcontroller. Our goal in creating a single finger prosthetic is to allow patients to regain grasping ability as well as bringing back their full hand dexterity.
MEMBERS: Rhund Khaldi, Dylen Trecek, Jaydn Richardson, Aubrie Thomison, Hannah Phillips
ADVISOR: Tom McGuire
SPONSOR: Envision (Wichita, KS)
Members of the visually impaired community express frustration of the lack of free hands due to the regular usage of white canes. This team has developed On-the-Go, which is a device that is compatible with a typical white cane (as it is an add-on), and will offer those who are visually impaired connectivity to their smart phones. People with varying levels of visual impairments will implement the On-the-Go cane add-on device because it will allow them to have more independence and confidence in their daily lives. This product offers tactile integration with the user’s phone from a device attached to the handle of the cane. Iterations of this device have been tested by potential users, and the feedback received has been used to determine the most optimal design. The final product consists of a battery, a charger, 3 buttons, and an ESP32C all confined in a slim housing that attaches to the handle of the cane. The iPhone sees the ESP32C as an external keyboard. Buttons on the device have assigned commands like Siri, Activate, Next Element, and Previous Element. The device is rechargeable, with an anticipated battery life of 7 days. This product will be available to the market for all cane users.
MEMBERS: Mohammed Ajoor, Abrar Abdalrahman, Sandy Tran
ADVISOR: John Harrison
Students need a tool that contains all the school needs in one place to help increase organization and improve management skills. Also, help college students keep track of their assignments, tests, tasks, meetings, and events easily. Everyone will use our note-taking app because of its simplicity, engagement, low-cost subscription, flexibility, and time efficiency. We are using “Electron”, which is a single code base for web and Desktop applications.
MEMBERS: Amogh Gokhale, Alana Cahill, Louie Tipton, Devin McConico, Alex Valdovinos
ADVISOR: Tom McGuire
SPONSOR: Parkinson's Connect (Wichita, KS)
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders, an estimated 500,000 Americans are currently diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease: a chronic and progressive disease that affects the central nervous system. It can cause a variety of mobility issues such as tremors, bradykinesia, stiffness, and imbalance. These symptoms take a serious physical toll on the patient, and cause them to lose the ability to do everyday tasks that were once simple before. A substantial issue our group has identified with the help of our sponsor, Parkinson’s Connect, is the inability of Parkinson’s patients to move from the middle to the edge of their bed. This issue largely affects later stage patients who live at home, and may only have one other person, or no other caregivers available. To combat this issue, Rise Mobility Devices has come up with a mechanical device to help facilitate this movement. This device consists of a durable yet comfortable specialized fleece and nylon blanket connected to a rotating pipe installed in the bed frame, and will move back and forth via hand crank. This product will be primarily for individual Parkinson’s patients and those who want to cut back costs of caregiving facilities. Furthermore, this device has the potential to help people suffering from other neurodegenerative diseases or disabilities.
MEMBERS: Kevin Dunham, Nickolas Morningstar, Hunter Garrison
ADVISOR: Thomas McGuire
SPONSOR: Club Parkinson's (Wichita, KS)
Parkinson’s Disease affects over 10 million people worldwide. Freeze Gait is a symptom the often occurs with advanced Parkinson’s Disease that causes episodes of temporary inability to step that occurs on initiation or turning while walking, especially with sudden movement and surprise. There are few remedies currently on the market to help a Parkinson’s Patient overcome freeze gait. However, KJN Biomechanical Designs is working on implementing features to an upright walker to help assist a Parkinson’s Patient overcome Freeze Gait. The plan to assist patients with Freeze Gait is to implement a step over and metronome function into a universal kit which can be applied to different models of upright walkers. Studies show that a metronome and step over function both help stimulate the brain and body to get back in sync with each other to help the patient's body move using outside audio and visual cues. This universal feature will differ from the competition because it will be easily attachable to any style of walker. This universal kit will also be of a lower cost and utilize additional improvements. Such as, allowing for a step over laser that is more visible outside and in bright light.
MEMBERS: Kyle Dodson, Joseph Boley, Andrew McLeod, Guoyao Yue, Katelyn Tran
ADVISOR: Tom McGuire
SPONSOR: Pastor Bryce (Timberlake, SD)
Because of the continuous loss of church members caused by the pandemic and other factors, small and medium-sized churches must look for an easy-to-use program to attract more people participating in churches and reduce office costs and time. However, the existing solutions on the market, which have overmuch unnecessary functions, complicated interfaces, and expensive prices, are more suitable for large churches, but cannot meet their needs and are hard to afford. Through interviews with multiple churches, communications and advice from customers, and the analysis of other applications we developed Tracer. Tracer is a web-based application providing features for assisting work like automatic statistical yearly tax reports for donations, analysis of current members, and tracking and storage for customizable information such as attendance and donations. The UI design of Tracer is straightforward and clear, making its interface easy to get started, and users can access the frequently used features quickly. It offers the design of modular functions, which allows the churches to only choose the required functions based on their scale and gives an affordable expense. Additionally, its cloud storage makes churches no longer need to worry about the costs of maintenance or hardware and provide reliable security. The web-based development also allows users to access the application anytime and anywhere simply though the Internet. Based on these functions, Tracer can not only help members better understand the operation situation of the church, but also can help to find a way for attracting more young people to join.