From Electric Motors to Patient-Based Apps, The 2016 CEID Fellows Are Ready To Innovate

The fourth cohort of the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science's Summer Design Fellowship program, held at the Center for Engineering Innovation and Design (CEID), is here and ready to innovate.

The 12 students in residence at the CEID comprise five teams of two to four members, each working on a specific project that they'll be working in teams on for eight weeks this summer. The Yale CEID Summer Design Fellowship is unique in that student teams are provided the resources to create hardware and software solutions for a specific problem, as opposed to working on previously established research projects. It is the only fellowship specifically designed to assist "makers" at Yale.

The projects are diverse – previous years have seen fellows working in the fields of biotech, aerospace, telecommunications, medical devices, and consumer products. In past years, fellows have published papers and started companies.

"It's a really special experience and opportunity to go wholeheartedly and dig into a project over the summer," said Dr. Joe Zinter, assistant director of the CEID, told the fellows on their first day.

Here's a quick look at the teams and the projects they'll be working on this summer:

CONDUIT - Security IDs can be a hassle when you need to swipe every time you need to gain access to numerous buildings several times a day. The team - Tilman Bartelsmeyer, Hannah Knight and Patrick Aidan Brooks - is designing a wearable security alternative that contains multiple IDs. Instead of taking out a wallet every time you enter a building, entry can be had with a mere wave of the wrist.

Yale Motors- The team - Dante Archangeli, Betsy Li and Philip Piper - inspired by their work with Bulldogs Racing, a Yale student club that builds and races formula-style racecars for the Formula-Hybrid Competition, aims to create a lightweight electric motor and controller. This package will support small electric vehicle projects that are challenged by lack of available high power motor and controller packages. Yale Motors hopes to have a prototype developed and tested by the end of the summer.

VIP Transplant – After an organ transplant is completed, a patient's journey is far from over. Among other logistics, there are medicines to manage and numerous follow-up medical appointments. The VIP Transplant team - Zobia Chunara, Lilium Wu and Jefferson Zou - is developing a telemedicine app that will help patients manage virtual appointments, interact with their transplant team, and gain access to their medical information. Dr. David Mulligan, Chief of Transplantation & Immunology at Yale-New Haven Hospital, serves as the team's advisor.

EZ Ice - Many rinks offer only a few hours a day – if even that - for public skating. And once you get in, you have to deal with the crowds. If only it were so easy as building a rink in your backyard. With EZ Ice, though, it just might be. The team - Joe Bedford and Craig Wojtala - plans to design a rink that can be assembled in the backyard with no tools in less than an hour.

Acantha – Central line placement is a common medical procedure in which a needle is placed in a large vein to deliver medicine and blood transfusions to the body. But the procedure isn't perfect; complications cost an estimated $4.5 billion to U.S. hospitals each year. Representing the Acantha team, Brandon Hudik is developing a system that would give health workers a better visual sense of the needle during the procedure to eliminate mistakes.