Good Afternoon UMBC Capstone Community,
Clients, Faculty and Staff and More!

Dr. Paris von Lockette, Dr. Chuck Laberge, Prof. Adam Bridendolph (Shady Grove) and Dr. Jamie Gurganus, the Senior Design instructors, extend a warm invitation for you to join us either in person or online for the:

Spring 2025 Senior Mechanical & Multidisciplinary Engineering 
Capstone Design Showcase
May 9th, starting at 9am in ITE 237

We're thrilled to present the progress of 18 teams as they share their projects, tracing the path from the inception of their ideas to the refinement of their final products. The Mechanical Engineering & Multidisciplinary Capstone teams have dedicated themselves tirelessly over the semester or year (~15 weeks or 9 months) to ensure excellence in their creations. We extend a warm invitation to the community to join us in witnessing the final stages of development before graduation.

Please know that we have several ASME Professional Engineers joining us that day who will be asking the majority of the questions. They will be selecting awards for ASME Best Project and ASME Best Presentation of the Semester. And, YOU will also be able to vote for the People’s Choice Award. Although ALL of them are amazing! 

Schedule for the day (detailed list of presentations is below and attached)

We will have two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, each with presentations (ITE 237) followed by demonstrations (ENGR Atrium).  Seating will be limited in the presentations, but the atrium will be open to all.

Please let us know if you are NOT a student presenter, but are planning to attend in person using this form so that we can estimate a head count.

·         9 – 11AM:      Presentation Session 1 (ITE237)

·         11 – 12PM:    Demonstration Session 1 (ENGR Atrium)

·         12 -1PM:        Presentation Session 2 (ITE237)

·         1-3PM:           Demonstration Session 2 (ENGR Atrium)

Streaming

If viewing online, please join using the WebEx Links below. Only the presentations will be streamed.

·         Session 1 Webinar: Join (password:  xJS2P3MG43A )

·         Session 2 Webinar: Join (password: ZMeS2dp3mc2 )

Course Description: 

·         The Capstone course empowers engineering students to embark on a comprehensive system design journey, culminating their curriculum experience. It serves as the pinnacle of a series of design courses essential to the undergraduate program, facilitating the integration of diverse technical knowledge acquired in earlier studies. Through this course, students develop a solid grounding in team leadership and project management, equipping them to navigate their professional endeavors with clarity and effectiveness, thereby making meaningful contributions to their chosen fields. Additionally, students may have the opportunity to choose projects sponsored by industry partners, nonprofit organizations, or faculty/organizations affiliated with UMBC. 

Looking forward to seeing you there!! It's an exciting time! 

Appx. Start Time	Session 1 Presentations:  9 - 11 AM (ITE 237)
9:00	ME Team 4	Compact and Transportable Crane for Assembly and Disassembly of a Reactor Model
9:12	ME Team 5	IZOD Impact Tester for Plastics and Polymer testing
9:24	ME Team 6	Flexible Thermoelectric Bulk Generator Devices
9:36	ME Team 7	Educational Haptic Platform
9:48	ME Team 11	Foot Brace Mechanical Test Instrumentation Device
10:00	ME Team 12	Proof of Concept Bistable Mechanism to Aid Single Ventricle Heart Defects
10:12	ME Team 13	Low Cost 3D Printer for Ceramics and Thick Pastes Built from a Creality Ender 3
10:24	ME Team 14	Regenerative Brake System for Vehicles Using Wasted Kinetic/Wind Energy
10:36	ME Team 15	3D Printing of Building Blocks for Visualizing Protein Molecules
Demonstrations to follow 11AM - 12PM ENGR Atrium
Appx  Start Time	Session 2 Presentations: 1 - 3PM (ITE 237)
1:00	ME Team 1	Quinn’s Adaptive Fishing Rod Holder & Casting Device
1:12	ME Team 2	Smart HVAC System
1:24	ME Team 3	Thrust Stand Extension - Reaction Moment Measurement System
1:36	ME Team 8	Shoulder Exoskeleton for Assistive Robotics
1:48	ME Team 9	Design and build a fluidic control board for pneumatic/hydraulic actuation of soft robotic ventricular sleeves
2:00	ME Team 10	Oyster Cage Retrieval System for Oyster Farming (ID 17)
2:12	Interdisciplinary 1	Consumer Unit Test Rig (CUTR) for BGE
2:24	Interdisciplinary 2	3D Haptics
2:36	Interdisciplinary 3	Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Super Group (2x Time)
Demonstrations to follow 3:00 – 4:00 PM Engr Atrium

Passionate about Black graduate student success? Join the BGSO E-Board and lead the change!

We’re excited to announce that E-Board positions for the 2025-2026 academic year are now open for the Black Graduate Student Organization (BGSO) at UMB/UMBC! The available positions include:

• President

• Secretary

• Treasurer

• Fundraising Chair

If you're a graduate student looking for leadership experience, meaningful connections, and the opportunity to make a lasting impact, we’d love to have you join us! Deadline is June 14th. 

1. Link to BGSO E-Board Positions 
2. Submit your application to run for a position by filling out the Application Form. 

We look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,

BGSO E-Board

UMBC researchers are collaborating on a study that takes a closer look at specific diagnosis coding patterns that focus on societal factors that potentially influence the health of Maryland’s Medicaid recipients. 

Morgan Henderson, director of analytics and research at UMBC’s The Hilltop Institute, and Jun Chu, assistant professor of public health, are among the five cross-collaborative teams selected to receive funding from UMBC’s Center and Institute Departmentally-Engaged Research (CIDER) program. Henderson and Chu’s CIDER-supported project will investigate potential “z code” patterns of the state’s Medicaid recipients. Z codes are a set of diagnosis codes that refer to factors influencing a patient’s health status beyond diseases or injuries, called social determinants of health. 

“These specific diagnosis codes indicate certain social determinants of health-related factors, not just traditionally medical things,” explains Henderson, principal investigator of the study. Z code data indicates if a patient has an issue that’s related to social risk factors, such as unstable housing, lack of food, hazardous living environments, and employment status.   

“There hasn’t been much analysis of z code patterns and we aim to lay a good foundation for better understanding these diagnosis codes within Maryland’s Medicaid data,” says Henderson. 

A deeper look into z code diagnosing could be a useful identification “to bring extra resources to Medicaid recipients who are in need,” says Chu. 

Analyzing Medicaid data

The study coincides with recent news of potential billion-dollar federal budget cuts to Maryland’s Medicaid program, which currently supports about 1.7 million Maryland residents. The Hilltop Institute specializes in working with the state’s Medicaid data. According to the institute’s Maryland Medicaid DataPort, two in five of those in Medicaid are children and Medicaid pays for 60 percent of nursing home stays. 

Chu’s research has largely focused on social determinants of health with a particular focus on immigrant communities and Medicaid recipients who are children. Henderson helped to develop and currently manages Hilltop’s predictive modeling portfolio. These predictive models, which also utilize z code data, use a variety of risk factors derived from Medicare and Medicaid claims data to estimate the probability that a given patient incurs certain outcomes in the near future.

The pair’s project will include two studies: one study will focus specifically on the patients ascribed z codes to determine what patterns arise based on patient-specific factors such as demographics, health care utilization, or geography. 

The second study will focus on analyzing the characteristics of the healthcare providers that indicate the z codes on Medicaid claims. 

“Patient claims are the engine that so much of health analysis relies upon. It’s the decision of the provider on which coding diagnoses to include—it’s not a completely standardized process,” says Henderson. 

CIDER 2025 recipients

The CIDER program’s goal includes supporting and promoting collaborative research between scholars based in one of UMBC’s affiliate centers and institutes and the university’s faculty researchers. Selected proposals are awarded up to $50,000 in seed funding for 18 months. 

The 2025 CIDER program recipients include: 

• Anin Puthukkudy, Earth and Space Institute, and Vanderlei Martins, professor of physics
• Jessica Sutton, Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research (GESTAR) II, Tejas Gokhale, assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering, and Thomas Stanley, GESTAR II
• Kaur Kullman, the Center for Space Sciences and Technology, Alan Sherman, Roberto Yus, and Enis Golaszewski, professors of computer science and electrical engineering
• Morgan Henderson, The Hilltop Institute at UMBC, and Jun Chu, assistant professor of public health
• Venkatesh Srinivasan, Center for Advanced Sensor Technology, Tyler Josephson, assistant professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering

Don Engel, associate vice president for research development, shares that the CIDER program was created to foster collaborations that draw on the full range of UMBC’s strengths in research and creative achievement. 

“CIDER helps connect faculty in our research centers with colleagues in degree-granting departments to pursue work with real impact—work that informs policy, advances knowledge, and ultimately serves the public good,” says Engel. 

Learn more about UMBC’s funding opportunities. 

It is with great pleasure that we officially announce the newly appointed Executive Board for the 2025-2026 year. Please join us in congratulating the following individuals on their leadership roles:

President: Jeslyn Loyo

Vice- President: Sewar Mohammad

Secretary: Benedict Kumi

Treasurer: Million Amanuel 

Public Relations Officer: Oluwanifemi Faluyi

Events Coordinator: Christian Taylor

We look forward to seeing what’s in store for the next academic year, we know they’ll do a great job. Congratulations once again to the new Executive Board!