CAPSTONE DESIGN PARTICIPANTS
Sumaita Karim
Hira Rahman
Gurpreet Randhawa
Mayuri Sritharan
Transparent Perovskite Solar Cells: Harvesting Energy from Everyday Surfaces
19
Traditional solar panels are typically installed on either rooftops or land, requiring large amounts of space to harvest significant energy. With increasing urbanization, there is a clear incentive to take advantage of the idle surface area available on the windows of buildings or even automobiles to meet our growing energy needs. Our device is a low-cost, optically transparent solar panel that efficiently generates renewable energy, while satisfying the commercial standard for window transparency. Using a perovskite active layer, we harvest energy in the UV spectrum while limiting the absorption in the visible spectrum to optimize transparency.
Consultant: John Saad
Javaid Baksh
Lydia Cheng
John Philip (JP) Lee
Mia San Gabriel
PowerFall: Triboelectric Nanogenerators for Harvesting Energy from Raindrops
21
While solar panels are indispensable in the renewable energy sector, their extremely low efficiency and high area requirements inhibit their growth. In North America, frequently overcast periods and high rates of precipitation during cooler months further limit their output power. Our solution is a low-cost, optically clear triboelectric device that can be used to harvest electrostatic energy from raindrops. This ensures that solar panel operation is not negatively impacted, while maintaining a constant supply of energy throughout the year.
Consultant: Dayan Ban
Cassandra Lee
Luca Leustean
James Luo
Camille Mallari
PiezoPulse: Piezoelectric Energy Harvester for Leadless Pacemakers
22
Leadless pacemakers (LPs) are an attractive alternative to traditional pacemakers that lower risks for users. However, battery life is limited to 10-15 years, meaning patients require multiple pacemakers and risky implantations over their lives. PiezoPulse is looking to extend the lifetime of these pacemakers by using a 1 micron, piezoelectric ZnO film capable of harvesting mechanical energy from heartbeats and converting this into electrical energy to power the LP. Through an optimized cantilever structure, this energy harvester looks to propel LPs forward, so that patients can continuously take advantage of all that this pacemaker technology has to offer.
Consultant: William Wong
Hashem Al Momani
Mohamed Ayman El-Naggar
Ryan Gallagher
Alina Pavel
Scribenote: Digitally Integrated Medical Appointment Audio Capture
23
Physicians and veterinarians are facing ever-increasing rates of burnout due to the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) in the workplace, due to the increased paperwork. Scribenote aims to offload this workload from doctors by allowing them to record and upload their appointments to a safely stored online database that complies with PIPEDA and HIPAA regulations; the recordings are then organized into useful SOAP notes by human scribes with a view to implement machine learning scribes in the future. Scribenote will provide the doctors with a high-quality microphone to record the appointments with seamless Bluetooth connection to upload the recordings.
Consultant: Helen Chen