HOUGHTON — Michigan Technological University hosted its Design Expo on Tuesday in the Memorial Union Ballroom and the Van Pelt and Opie Library. It featured first-year, senior design and enterprise teams as well as an image contest.

This year’s Design Expo featured cash awards totaling nearly $3,500. The Michigan Tech Design Expo, which started in 2000, is still going strong 26 years later. More than 100 teams competed, not only for the prize money, but for the attention of sponsors such as 3M, Aramco, DTE, Caterpillar, Microsoft, Siemens and NASA.

Nagesh Hatti, director of the Enterprise Program at MTU, said the students presenting Tuesday were fired up and ready to make their first impact on their respective industries.

“Students get to work on real world projects with real world clients,” Hatti said. “The goal for them is to experience real life, working in real life situations, before they go into the industry.”

On the Enterprise side, Lunabotics Student Project Manager, Katherine Rauscher, helped construct a lunar rover in collaboration with the NASA’s Lunabotics competition. The goal with her team’s rover is to help build habitats for human colonization of the Moon.

“We built this rover kind of as a proof of concept for NASA, and compete with different universities from across the country,” she said. “If NASA sees something they like on our design, they can take it and potentially use that to influence their own lunar rover design.”

Mobile Operations Off-world Surface Excavation (or MOOSE) was a part of four designs at the Multiplanetary Innovation Enterprise (MINE) booth.

Ben Paddock, team member of the Green Campus Enterprise, showcased his team’s project, which sought out a solar energy feasibility test for the Portage Lake Water and Sewage Authority. Paddock said their results showed promise and could be better on a larger scale water grid.

“Larger scale is, I would say, more feasible since there’s more energy coming in,” he said. “There’s more opportunity to cut energy in larger metropolitan areas because there is so much going into it… the implementation of solar is actually, quite drastic in some cases.”

In a sea of Michigan Tech enterprise teams, stood a lone group of high school students from Dollar Bay, with its partnership with Isle Royale National Park. The Student Organization of Aquatic Robots (SOAR) is a team made up of Dollar Bay-Tamarack City High School students who are implementing robotics into consideration biology practices.

Senior, Avery Stevens, said SOAR has different projects helping curb the spread of invasive species in the Great Lakes. “Isle Royale came like a long time ago to figure out a way to find zebra mussels on the bottom of boats because they were stealing the fish food — they’re an invasive species,” Stevens said. “But then we have a demo ROB that’s meant to teach kids, get kids interested in STEM.”

SOAR has taken the students to new heights, from the class room all the way to Michigan Tech’s campus to showcase their work. The seven students were eager to show off their projects and talk to contest judges and the public.

On the MTU Senior Design side, another NASA collaboration featured a team working directly with scientists from the government agency to help improve International Space Station technologies. Andrew Van Lente helped design what he calls a “microgravity eyewash station.” According to Van Lente, he and his team helped simplify an already existing design and eliminated extra tubing.

“”We are trying to simplify [the design] by creating a constant and steady flow rate… minimizing the mass and volume,” he said. “We’ve been doing weekly check-in meetings with [NASA] and then we’ve had larger meetings throughout.”

Another senior design project featured a team of students using mechanical principles to convert exercise into energy. The Gravitational Reservoir and Energy Generator (GREG) project was constructed with the help of Megan Kennedy, who explained its purpose and potential future uses.

“[GREG] is a gravitational energy storage system, which means that he stores energy by raising a heavy mass set to a potential height,” she said, referring to the system as if it were a person. “Then when the energy demand is needed … you could lower that weight, and he would spin a generator, which would cause you to get electrical potential energy.”

According to Kennedy, GREG creates 471 watts per weight drop, equating to about an hours worth of light produced by a bulb.

Hatti said the Design Expo is a great way for students to showcase their work and get noticed by companies, potentially leading to future employment.

“A lot of these students actually get offers from the companies that sponsor their projects,” he said. “It’s like a nine month interview, both for the students and for the folks who sponsor.”

The Design Expo was followed by a reception in the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts, including refreshments and the aannouncement of the winners of cash prizes. The list of winners were not available at press time, but can.