College of Engineering

Current StudentsFuture StudentsFaculty & StaffDirectoryGive

College students present more than 100 prototypes, designs at VCU Engineering expo

April 16, 2019

Areal view of the Capstone Design Expo in April 2018
The event will be held Friday, April 26, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Siegel Center, 1200 W. Broad St. Awards will be presented at 2:30 p.m. The expo is free and open to the public.

RICHMOND, Va. (April 15, 2019) – More than 100 engineering designs, prototypes, innovations and entrepreneurial business cases, created by engineering and business students, will be on display at the Virginia Commonwealth University College of Engineering’s annual Capstone Design Expo.

The event will be held Friday, April 26, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Siegel Center, 1200 W. Broad St. Awards will be presented at 2:30 p.m. The expo is free and open to the public.

Among the innovations to be presented at this year’s expo are a drone that can deliver and inject life-saving medicine to overdosed patients in remote areas, swim trunks that will allow a veteran who lost both legs to swim in lake water without risk of infection, and an optimized door wedge that is better than door locks at protecting against active shooters in public buildings.

Most of the prototypes are the product of VCU Engineering’s eight-month Capstone Design course, which teaches leadership, teamwork and design skills in a collaborative environment. The annual expo gives student design teams the opportunity to present their work to researchers, industry leaders and the general public, and to increase the awareness of the engineering profession among visiting middle and high school students.

The program also gives students the opportunity to develop and complete projects that may lead to new product innovation for the benefit of society. Students can compete for additional financial support for their projects through a fund made possible by a generous gift from Mark A. Sternheimer. To further guide student designs along the path toward commercialization, VCU School of Business students are partnering with some of the teams as part of their entrepreneurship capstone course, New Venture Strategy and Initiation.

A full list of projects can be found at https://egr.vcu.edu/capstone/2018-2019-projects/.

Sponsors of this year’s expo include corporations, nonprofits and health sciences organizations and can be found at https://egr.vcu.edu/capstone/sponsors/#thanks