Design Day at the University of Rochester
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The engineering students in this room were given a task, a problem to solve, at the beginning of their senior year. What they've come up with could one day be something we end up using in the real world.
"He wanted a device that was completely non-invasive, that wouldn't touch the drug, wouldn't pump the drug,” said biomedical engineering major Catherine Marando.
Marando said a local anesthesiologist came to the University of Rochester, wanting a device that could measure exactly how much fluid a patient is given during surgery.
"Right now, the way they record this data is by eyeballing the amount that's been delivered,” Marando said. "Thirteen percent of anesthesia malpractice errors come from recording errors. So if we could have a device that could decrease errors in recording, make it more accurate that could decrease hospital costs and could also decrease the demands on the physician."
Catherine's team came up with Flomar, a device that measures and records fluid without a pump.
"There is nothing out there that does what this does."
Like Catherine's team, dozens of others showcased their ideas at the U of R's Design Day. These are school's biomedical, optics, chemical and electrical engineering students who get some real world practice trying to solve some real world problems. Those problems come to them from area companies, institutions or industry experts.
They get a chance to deal with that uncertainty, to schedule things, to deal with a budget to work together in a team and to really apply their technical skills, so it is uniformly a valuable experience for them whether they become device designer or doctors or go to law school,” said Amy Lerner, UR engineering professor.
The students will go on to present their product solutions to their clients. Some products will end up being used in research. Some students will go on to get patents for their ideas. A few innovations from past years are actually already in use.
Catherine's team says many in the industry are excited about their idea, and she feels the hard work behind it, was worth it.
"The experience is tremendous. I would've never have gotten this from just reading a text book and coursework."
A note here about the grade: the students were graded both individually and as team members. It doesn't matter if the product they come up with is used in the real world. It mattered more about the process that got them to their final solution.