HOUGHTON – Spotlighting the best of the enterprise and design capabilities of its engineering students, Michigan Technological University held its annual Design Expo on Thursday.

Rick Berkey, director of the Enterprise Program was on hand throughout the event held on the second floor of the Memorial Union Building on campus.

“This is our showcase of the Enterprise and Senior Design teams,” Berkley said. “Roughly 80 teams from across campus, multiple disciples, often working with industry sponsors, so this is sort of our year-end way to celebrate all the accomplishments and hard work that have gone into these projects.”

Just one example of the projects on display at the expo was an autonomous robotic vehicle dubbed “Charlie.” Charlie is the brain child of the Blue Marble Security Team, comprised of some 54 members, led by mechanical engineering student Jonathan Jerred and Alfredo Sato, electrical engineering major. The team is sponsored by corporations ArcelorMittal, Halla, Oshkosh and Caterpillar. Blue Marble had 10 projects, including three sponsored teams.

Another item displayed at the expo was the Pandemic Ventilator, a low-cost ventilator that is a simplified form of a major hospital ventilator. The current model costs about $850 and uses pressure sensors to control the patient’s breathing, using three variable inputs: breaths per minute, maximum pressure and pressure left inside the lungs at the end of the breath. The unit also features internal filters that clean exhausted breath of communicable disease evidence before releasing it back into the atmosphere.