Showcase

Interested in what we do at EPIC? We hope our Showcase will inspire you. Explore your peers innovative projects and find out how they were made possible!

Braille TypeWriter

by Fahim Rabbi

What was your inspiration? Class Assignment for ME360 Prof Gutierrez Spring ’23
Who were your teammates? Weinuo Lin, Lorenzo Moriche
What problem does your product solve? Converts texts to braille and prints it out on paper
How was your product made? What manufacturing processes did you use? What materials is it made of? Designed the parts and created assembly on Solidworks to get a better understanding of the mechanism. Manufacturing process used are – Laser Cut/Engrave, CNC Mill, Lathe, WireEDM, 3D print. Materials used – 3mm Acrylic, Steel, sheet metal, PLA 3D print material, aluminum extrusion.
Words of wisdom for fellow innovators? Describe any issues you had to overcome and what you learned from your experience making your product? When designing a dynamic product, we found that making an assembly on Solidworks was critical in visualizing how the product would function and move. This also helps a lot with the actual assembly process. Moreover, knowing the strength of the materials being used is important. We ended up breaking our pen mechanism twice because of the use of wrong material for parts that undergoes a lot of stress.
More Info https://fahim851.wixsite.com/fahim-rabbi-portfoli/cartesian-motion-system

Laser-cut Chainmail Dress

by Sophie Caplan, Class of 2023

What was your inspiration? Personal Interest
What problem does your product solve? Fitting the theme of this year’s Fashion & Retail Club Fashion Show: Gardenia, I wanted to create a fun, springtime look to sparkle on the runway.
How was your product made? What manufacturing processes did you use? What materials is it made of? This chainmail top and skirt are made from scrap acrylic and plywood. I designed simple shapes in Adobe Illustrator: circles, four-petal flowers, butterflies, and teardrops which I then cut out of the various acrylic and thin plywood pieces that I was able to gather. Since most of the shapes are no more than 1″x1″, I was able to use scrap material that would have otherwise been waste. With all the tokens I laser cut, I then individually connected them to each other using metal jump rings, to emulate chainmail. Connecting the tokens was a tedious process, and I used pliers to open and secure the jump rings. I used fabric I bought from Goodwill (I think it was intended to be upholstery fabric) to sew the skirt, which I connected the chainmail piece to with jump rings, as well.
Words of wisdom for fellow innovators? Describe any issues you had to overcome and what you learned from your experience making your product? My initial plan was to create an entire dress of these tokens, but I greatly underestimated the number I would need, the time it would take to cut all these out of the acrylic and wood, and the time it took to connect the tokens using jump rings, since each token had four connection holes (for the jump rings to loop through). Using scrap material was a great sustainable and economic option, but this did mean that the laser cutting process took longer since I need to arrange the designs in very specific patterns in order to work with the irregularly shaped scraps I was using. I also learned that opening and closing hundreds of jump rings definitely requires pliers, but two sets of pliers would actually be ideal. Since I was holding the jump ring between my left pointer finger and thumb and holding the pliers in my right hand, these two fingers basically callused from gripping the small metal rings which were being twisted repeatedly. Having two sets of pliers – one to hold the rings still and the other to open them would be the most comfortable option.
 

Directional Overhead Light

by Monirah Alodah

What was your inspiration? Class Assignment for EK210
Who were your teammates? Joshua Bardwick, Ronith Bellary, Susan Gamboa-Stumpf
What problem does your product solve? The goal of this project was to create an overhead and directable light for use by people with limited mobility.
How was your product made? What manufacturing processes did you use? What materials is it made of? Two Arduino Nano microcontrollers were used to operate the system. These, as well as the LEDs, were powered by a 10V wall outlet. The final circuit required a MOSFET for each LED, power resistors to get safe voltage drops for each color, and resistors across each MOSFET. The voice module was placed in the central cylinder of the housing so that it could have some free space to pick up commands. The Arduinos and voice sensor were seated next to each other inside the housing so that long wires would not be required to connect them. As we ran into issues with a soldered breadboard, we used two solderless breadboards cut down to fit into the housing. These were placed on opposite sides of the housing, and two LEDs were wired to each. To house the product safely, acrylic sheets were cut into petal-like pieces, assembled together with metal sheets cut into strips, and bent at the specific angle for the panel. The ceiling mount was a 3D-printed canopy that housed the metal mounting panel, the ambient light sensor, wall plug wires, and the necessary wiring for the sensor. A chain was connected to the metal plate attached to the ceiling and to two poles that housed the wiring, secured by screws and nuts to the lid on top of the main housing. With this method, the entire product is securely attached to the ceiling. Overall, this project further builds on our experience in design and assembly in the engineering process and working on designing and delivering a product under client instructions.
Words of wisdom for fellow innovators? Describe any issues you had to overcome and what you learned from your experience making your product? Foster collaboration, test early and often, stay adaptable, and prioritize user-centric design. Throughout our project, we overcame technical challenges through planning and testing, managed resource constraints with creativity and efficient project management, validated market demand through research and user feedback, addressed regulatory compliance issues by staying informed, and learned valuable lessons in each aspect of product development.

Tie Interceptor

by Fredisvindo Bebe III, Class of 2025

What was your inspiration? Personal Interest
What problem does your product solve? Boredom, lack of decorations
How was your product made? What manufacturing processes did you use? What materials is it made of? Laser cut cardboard and acrylic, also superglue
Words of wisdom for fellow innovators? Describe any issues you had to overcome and what you learned from your experience making your product? Make sure your materials the right thickness, if its not, super glue two thinner boards together before you cut the pieces out so you’re not gluing together tiny parts.

Top Crafted on a CNC Lathe

by Tasker Smith, Staff

What was your inspiration? Personal Interest
What problem does your product solve? Solving the challenge of technical work-holding with a 3D Printed fixture on the lathe
How was your product made? What manufacturing processes did you use? What materials is it made of? 3D Printed fixture, aluminum top turned on TRAK 1630RX CNC lathe
Words of wisdom for fellow innovators? Describe any issues you had to overcome and what you learned from your experience making your product? This project required a lot of experimentation to overcome the challenge of holding an organic shape. Custom work-holding was required, and it was fun to experiment with 3D Printing as a strategy for holding this part after the first side had been turned on the lathe.

Stencils of Custom Typography

by students in Brocket Horne’s class

What was your inspiration? Graphic Design Course in the School of Fine Arts
What problem does your product solve? Bespoke typeface transformed into stencils for graphic design packages
How was your product made? What manufacturing processes did you use? What materials is it made of? Acrylic sheets cut on the laser cutter and MDF engraved on the laser cutter
Words of wisdom for fellow innovators? This was an outstanding experience that will change how students design