Ingenuity of NJIT's Budding Engineers Spotlighted at NCE Showcase

Recently, the ingenuity of Newark College of Engineering's brightest first-year students was on full display at the 2024 NCE First Year Engineering Design Showcase.

Forty-two teams featured in this year's showcase to present a wide range of innovative engineering projects originating from their fall semester introductory engineering design course - from prosthetic limbs and exoskeleton knee braces built at NJIT's Makerspace, to traffic light clocks for improving intersections on campus, temperature-controlled fans, home security systems and more.

The friendly competition, which first launched in 2012 and is sponsored by NCE and the NJIT Learning Communities, has become an annual highlight for the college and the budding engineering talent throughout its six departments.

"Most students presenting were first-semester students that didn't know much about the engineering design process, or working with 3D printing and wireless technology. Yet, this event continuously proves how quickly NJIT students can learn these skills and use their intellect and imagination to solve practical problems like engineers," said NCE Dean Moshe Kam. "Seeing the scope of these projects, the collaboration and creativity involved, makes this event special."

In the Campus Center Ballroom, teams engaged competition judges and onlookers with live demos and slideshow presentations detailing the work that brought their designs to life.

Christopher S. Falconi, Christian A. Villar and Eduardo P. Benevides showcase their camera-styled pencil sharpener.

(Left) Maeve Marko, Jeremie MacEwen and Mimi Pham demo their project, "Winter Scene with Figure Skating Characters" (Right) Salma Mohammed demos her team's prosthetic hand.

Students like Kermina David '27 - whose team built a remote controlled, 3D-printed robotic arm with resources from NJIT's Prosthetics Club - have been anticipating the showcase as an opportunity to learn from fellow presenters. David became so invested in improving their design (inspired by the robot assistants in Marvel's Iron Man movies) that she joined the prosthetics club and became its president.

David with teammates Leyla Fuentes, Jessica Ramirez and Ashley Fajardo Noriega show off their 3D printed, motorized robotic arm.

"We spent almost two months learning how to build it. There were late nights in the lab making sure we wired everything correctly, so it corresponded to all the lines of code we wrote for the motorized arm to move around and hold objects," said David, an Albert Dorman Honors student and computer engineering major from Clifton, NJ. "I want to continue developing this with the prosthetics club, so I've been excited to meet other engineers and learn ways to improve our design."

"I knew almost nothing about engineering before this, so to discover an interest in the biomedical field and help build something this complex has been the most impactful thing about this experience."

By afternoon, online votes were tallied to decide the showcase's "Audience Choice" award, announced by event organizer and Assistant Director of First-Year Engineering Programs, Miosotis Hernandez.

Eric Manno and Merrick Simmons took first prize for building a retro-style video graphics card that would have been at home inside a 1980s Commodore 64 computer to display basic images and text on an external monitor. Manno says their project "VGA Video Card," was inspired by watching DIY tutorials from famous YouTubers like Ben Eater.

Simmons and Manno presented with Audience Choice Award by NCE Associate Dean of Academics Lucie Tchouassi, and Assistant Professor of Engineering Ashish Borgaonkar, who has been connected with the event since its inception.

"We felt we had a cool project, but wouldn't have expected to win the audience vote," said Manno '26, a computer engineering major and Hardwick, NJ native. "Most of us just plug our laptop into a monitor to watch videos, but this project offers a nice and simple way to learn how computers communicate with monitors. Our board took over 500 hand cut wires to assemble, so to see it produce an image that was coded into the CPU was a great feeling."

The competition's "Judge's Choice" first-place honors went to Tallicia Dunbar, Nadine Salem, Kelly Vieira for their personal protection device, "Sallybar Safety." Disguised in a lipstick-sized casing, the device's high-pitched safety alarm with strobe lights was designed to ward off potential attackers with the push of a button.

(From left) Nadine Salem, Kelly Vieira and Tallicia Dunbar celebrate the Judge's Choice grand prize at their presentation table.

"It was a surprise to hear our name called because there's so many great projects, but we put in a lot of effort. We also spent a lot of time on our presentation and the marketing side of our product with brochures and swag, which I think caught the judges' eyes," said Kelly Vieira '26, a mechanical engineering technology major from Hillside, NJ.

"As an all-female team, we started thinking of everyday problems we could solve. We all related to times traveling alone at night when we could have used something like this," added Vieira. "Our approach was to design a simple device that's functional for anyone seeking an extra sense of security. It will look more stylish with future iterations."

While their design is now in its fourth prototype, they say coming refinements include a sleeker form factor using a smaller circuit board, alarm volume enhancements and stronger LEDs. Eventually, they also plan to add Bluetooth capability for the option of location signaling to friends' or family members' phones.

"We've seen teams here that have developed great apps, and that's given us ideas for developing an app that further supports our product too," said Nadine Salem '26, an electrical and computer engineering technology major from Rahway, NJ. "The most rewarding part of this journey has been the collaboration that brought us together. But between this award and seeing the ideas shared today, we're motivated to elevate our design and have a polished product in semesters to come."

For more on the NCE First-Year Design Showcase, visit here.

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