prepare for the future with Senior Design

At Mercer's School of Engineering, we believe in the philosophy "learning by doing." As such, all engineers participate in hands-on projects during their undergraduate careers, including a senior design project spanning their last two semesters at Mercer. Within this project, students are encouraged to work on interdisciplinary teams to design, build, and test a realistic engineering system with a substantial biomedical component or focus. Students combine the knowledge they have gained through classes taken in various specialties to produce a comprehensive final project.

For a listing of student projects and a schedule of presentation times for the current semester, click here. To see examples of biomedical projects, check out the projects highlighted below which are indicative of projects within the biomedical specialization.

Senior Design Spotlights

Two biomedical specialization students, Amanda Chappell and Christopher Walters, teamed with mechanical specialization student Jake Dickson to design, build, and test surgical shears with innovative cutting design to reduce non-uniform hemodynamics wall parameters (HPWs) at the reconstructed arterial junctions including end-to-side anastromosis for femoral arterial and arerio-venous graft. The team was advised by Dr. Sinjae Hyun and Dr. Hodge Jenkins.

Four biomedical specialization students collaborated to design, build, and test both physical and computational fluid visualization systems to represent stenosis and aneurysms in blood vessels for vessels for educational purposes. The team was advised by Dr. Sinjae Hyun; team members included Cindy Bower, Thad Carson, Kellie McConnell, and Jenny Womack.

A team of three biomedical specialization students-- Kyle Gwathney, Asheley Randall, and April Saunders-- worked to design, build, and test a thermodilution model to be used by students in the BME lab. The team was advised by Dr. Edward O'Brien.

Three biomedical specialization students collaborated to design, build, and test an instrument that measures where a subject's eyes are looking. The instrument had to keep a subject's head stationary and use electrodes to detect eye movement angles +/- 5 degrees accuracy (on a horizontal plane only). Team members included Elizabeth Embury, Jeremy Trotter, and Jackie Viren. The team was advised by Dr. Edward O'Brien.

Two biomedical specialization students teamed with an electrical specialization student to design, build, and test a device that detects driver drowsiness. Team members included Taylor Jones, John Shick, and Khalid Walliullah. The group was advised by Dr. Edward O'Brien.