Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Innovation everywhere: UNLV engineering students show off futuristic prototypes

EEG Controlled Wheelchair

Ed Komenda

UNLV students demonstrate how to use the EEG Controlled Wheelchair, which converts brainwaves into signals that tell the chair to move forward and back, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014.

Some students want to change the world. Others just want to make life a little easier.

That much was clear on Thursday at UNLV’s Howard Hughes College of Engineering, where students in their last semester of school presented prototypes of products they dreamed up, designed and built all by themselves for the Senior Design Competition. Judged by a panel of professional engineers, the students were competing for a $4,000 grand prize.

More than 30 engineering teams presented their inventions, boasting everything from a sensor system built to keep track of toilet paper and soap to a wheelchair controlled by your brainwaves to a device that simply cools down hot coffee.

Here’s a look at a few of the coolest prototypes on display:



    • Automatic Shifter for Bicycle Gears

      Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering

      Team: Michael Kajowski, Matthew Mumm

      This invention uses a microprocessor, two sensors and an ion battery to change the gears on a bicycle. The processor reads the rpms of the bicycle’s wheels and determines which gear should be engaged. Based on the signal sent by the processor, a hydraulic pump pulls or releases the gear cable to shift up or down.

      If the pedals stop rotating, the bicycle will remain in the same gear until the computer senses there needs to be a change. Similar systems have been built before and run around $1,000 in stores. The team behind this version say the product could cost as little at $500.

    • Restroom Feedback Networks

      Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering

      Team: W. Kolby Robinson, Jesus Gonzalez

      We’ve all been there: You walk into a public restroom, and there’s no hand soap or toilet paper. This invention uses sensors to track and report the amount of toilet paper and soap used in public restrooms.

      With every tug of the toilet paper and push of the soap pump, a sensor sends a message back to the facilities manager, letting him know when he needs to replace a facility’s toiletries.

    • Samurai Belt Cutter

      Department: Electrical and Mechanical Engineering

      Team: Dominic Fossile, Vincent Ibanez, Yun Long Lan, Jonathan Lee, Erwin Sacundo

      The postal service uses a lot of conveyor belts. The problem? Replacing worn out belts with perfectly cut new ones. A precisely cut belt lasts much longer than an ill-fitting one. But traditional belt cutters tend to churn out only rough copies. The Samurai Belt Cutter aims to change all that, replacing the manual belt cutter you find in places like UPS and the United States Postal Service. The cutter uses an automated system to make 90-degree cuts with an extremely sharp blade and without as much chance for human error.

    • Rapid Coffee Cooler

      Department: Mechanical Engineering

      Team: Matt McKellar, Michael Ridolfi, Edward Van Meter

      How much innovation could coffee drinking really demand? A considerable amount, according to this team. The Rapid Coffee Cooler brings coffee from boiling to ice cold in less than five minutes. The boxy contraption does it by shooting ice into a chamber filled with water and then blasting that ice water against a stainless steel container filled with coffee. Voila!

    • EEG Controlled Wheelchair

      Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering

      Team: Adam Wolverton, David Nguyen and Edgar Solorio

      What if you could control a wheelchair with your eyebrows? That’s the idea behind this invention, which uses a motor and EEG — recordings of the electrical signals produced by brain waves — to move a wheelchair backward or forward. The system is made up of a microcontroller connected to a Bluetooth headset and a sensor placed on a user’s forehead.

      With the flick of an eyebrow, the sensor toggles through directions (forward, backward, left, right) programmed into the controller. If you raise an eyebrow and hold its position — or “focus,” as the team calls it — the controller will engage the wheelchair’s motor and the wheels begin to roll.

    • Pin-Magnet Trigger Lock

      Department: Mechanical and Computer Engineering

      Team: Joshua Neiry, Michelle Albert, and Min Long Lan

      Put a trigger lock on your firearm the wrong way, and you’ve got a problem; the device won’t actually stop the trigger. The team behind the Pin-Magnet Trigger Lock (MPT) installed a set of moving pins connected to a magnet around the gun’s trigger. The pins expand, so even if the lock is put on backwards, the trigger won’t fire. The lock also includes a fingerprint scanner to provide quick access to the firearm in case of an emergency.

    Join the Discussion:

    Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

    Full comments policy