It was announced Aug. 30, 2021 that an Elizabethtown College senior capstone engineering team won the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Susquehanna Section Capstone Award at the first-ever competition that took place earlier this summer. The competition recognizes outstanding engineering capstone projects in colleges in the Susquehanna area.
The team was composed of five engineering students who graduated last spring: Alejandro Chicas ‘21, Donato Grimaldi ‘21, Andrew Fisher ‘21, Alexander Koontz ‘21 and Clark Williamson ’21. They beat multiple teams from undergraduate engineering programs in York College, Penn State Harrisburg and Shippensburg University, among others.
The project is entitled “Automated Hydroponics System” and it was designed and implemented in the basement of the Baugher Student Center (BSC) in order to help Dining Services grow vegetables. Hydroponics is a technique of growing plants in a mineral-rich growing medium instead of soil. The pH and the nutrient mix of the growing medium can be regulated so that the exact amount of food can be delivered to the plants. Plants grown using hydroponics do not need fertilizers or pesticides and require less space. Hydroponics also conserves water, minimizes the loss of nutrients and controls plant growth. However, implementing a hydroponics system takes a lot of time and technical knowledge.
Associate professor of engineering and IEEE member Dr. Tomás Estrada was one of the engineering faculty members who mentored the capstone team. He is quite involved in the IEEE Susquehanna Section and helped put together the capstone award competition for the section. He and his fellow capstone project mentors, associate professors of engineering Dr. Brenda Read-Daily and Dr. Kurt DeGeode, chose the hydroponics project as the strongest senior capstone project to be entered into the competition.
All senior capstone teams had to create a poster and do a Zoom presentation for Scholarship and Creative Arts Day (SCAD) as well as submit a written report before the end of the semester. The capstone team found the competition to be much less stressful than their project.
“We actually didn’t have to do anything,” capstone team member Grimaldi said, “Dr. Estrada emailed [my team members and me] and asked us to submit something. A week later he told us that he submitted our poster. Then it turned out we won!”
The competition was judged by members of the IEEE Susquehanna Section who are all engineering faculty and/or industry professionals in the area, according to Estrada.
“The judges told me that what really stood out to them was the way the Etown team delivered a truly multidisciplinary [project], seamlessly integrating different strands of engineering, such as electrical, mechanical [and] programming,” Estrada said. “They were impressed with the team’s outstanding teamwork and collaboration, especially with the challenges of COVID. They also found it very positive that the project actually gets to be implemented on campus.”
Even though this competition was restricted to capstone projects in the electrical engineering or closely related fields, Estrada mentioned that it could be worth exploring other similar competitions in different fields of engineering and other disciplines in the School of Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EMCS).
Estrada also discussed his positive experience with the competition and with everyone involved in it.
“I’m always really impressed with the quality of work that our students produce every year, as well as the impressive mentoring efforts of my colleagues,” he said. “It was awesome to see this work get recognition outside of just Etown!”
He also expressed his desire to have Etown engineering students continue to enter similar competitions in the future, especially since he believes that capstone project teams will continue to design, build and implement quality work.
