The Senior Design Capstone projects at UC Santa Cruz provides a select group of students with a unique opportunity to work on real-world engineering projects as the culmination of their undergraduate education. Throughout the academic year, students interact with teammates and hold frequent meetings with their sponsors, getting feedback on the solutions they have developed and guidance on the work in progress. By working with mentors at corporate partner companies, students learn important skills, take on intriguing challenges, and begin to understand what it means to be a professional engineer.
Browse the projects below, or view our 2024 Partners’ Day book. For more engagement, view the projects from past years’ programs.
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Advanced Memory Utilization Analytics (Nutanix)
Nutanix provides cloud computing options to customers worldwide through hypervisor software for virtual machine management. With the rapid growth of data-intensive workloads on computer systems,…
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B2B Sales Forecasting (Rimini Street)
Every quarter, the sales team at Rimini Street must forecast which opportunities will close. Accuracy is critical as these forecasts drive decision-making around prioritization, resource…
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Brinqa – Customer Health Activity Dashboard (Brinqa)
Brinqa provides cybersecurity solutions for close to a thousand different clients. They currently interact with their customer data as raw text which makes quick assessment…
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Brinqa – Onboarding Guide (Brinqa)
Brinqa customer success engineers need an onboarding guide that automates and streamlines this process, while being highly configurable and customized to each client. To effectively…
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Crop Doctor (UCSC)
The need for human involvement to maintain crops has steadily increased since the 1940’s, with 20-40% of global annual crop yield lost to pests and…
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Dell LCBot (Dell Technologies)
Currently, when system upgrades fail or a system pre-check reports issues, sysadmins may have to manually sift through countless documents for a few days in…
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Elve mmWave (Elve)
This team is dedicated to creating an RF link prototype that will establish a 5 [Gbps] one-way communication link that operates in the W-band, 76-81…
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Eye Diagram Analyzer (Keysight Technologies)
The project addresses the challenge of efficiently analyzing and comparing eye diagrams, which represent digital signal quality. By creating a system that incorporates data downsampling,…
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Hardware Validation Dashboard (Nutanix)
The team developed a user-friendly dashboard to visualize the results of daily regression tests at a glance. This was to solve an issue Nutanix had…
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Island Earth Odyssey (See Change Now)
The goal of this project was to create independent mini-games in Unity that encourage climate activism. These games show players the causes and solutions to…
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Keysight: AI Forum Bot (Keysight Technologies)
The AI forum bot addresses the problem statement by developing an AI system that can generate accurate and immediate responses to user queries on the…
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Keysight AI Plugin Generation Project (Keysight Technologies)
Test engineers, who do not necessarily have a software background, spend time learning how to create a new plugin for every device they want to…
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Market Changes Due to Generative AI (LEEPS Lab)
As AI technology rapidly develops, it will likely begin influencing facets of every field, including the economic market. To understand the effects of this, the…
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Oxford Instruments: X-Ray Technologies Artifact Detection Automation (Oxford Instruments)
The Alpine Software delivers an automated production system for the detection of radio-opaque artifacts within a beryllium disk. Through the incorporation of instrument control and…
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SproutLabs IoT Device Flow (SproutLabs)
SproutLabs is a UC Santa Cruz Alumni startup aiming to provide affordable IoT solutions for small farms. Farmers can use the data collected by SproutLabs…
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Tassel: Alumni Microvolunteering (UCSC)
The Tassel UCSC Alumni Volunteering web app provides an easy way for users to post volunteering opportunities, find qualified volunteers, and join volunteering opportunities. This…
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UCSC PD Crime Visualization (UCSC)
The UC Santa Cruz Police Department’s current crime tracker is difficult to understand and is underutilized by the public. The team’s solution is to create…
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UCSC PD Inventory (UCSC)
Maintaining an accurate inventory is crucial for the UCSC PD, as their tools and equipment represent significant investments for the department and play a vital…
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UXly Blockchain Analytics (UXly)
UXly is a startup that focuses on exceptional UI design and user experience and specializes in Web3 applications. Their clients seek a comprehensive blockchain analytics…
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3D Filament Recycling Test Stand
Rapid prototyping technologies like 3D printers produce plastic waste. On average, 3-4 prints are failed prints that are discarded. This product aims to provide a…
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Automated Playback Speakers to Measure Wildlife Response to Human Disturbance
The purpose of this project is to observe the effects that human-made noise has on the behavior of wild animals, specifically large felids. The information…
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Autonomous Sanitation Assistant Robot
The autonomous cleaning assistant robot (ASAR), controlled via an app, efficiently sanitizes hospital areas by navigating to the target locations. It cleans using a disinfectant…
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Beverage Service Robot
Following the COVID19 pandemic, restaurants and other food service industries have experienced staff shortages, which in turn increases wait times and negatively affects customer service.…
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Computer-Aided Search and Rescue Robot
Search and Rescue operations, involving building collapses, require the localization of survivors in a timely manner with as little disturbance to the surrounding rubble for…
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CITRIS: Air Quality Monitoring Drone
This project provided valuable insights into future air quality monitoring using hardware, software, power, and mechanical engineering. The team gathered data received on the ground…
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CrisisLink: Revolutionizing Communication During Disasters
The current communication infrastructure fails to connect at-risk rural communities to first responders during critical scenarios. CrisisLink aims to bridge the gap and produce a…
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Cruz Store Analyzer
The UCSC campus store has a lot of data in spreadsheets that needs to be analyzed. Their current solution is inefficient and requires manual analysis.…
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Electro-Mechanical Shield for Aquatic Propeller
The team’s system attaches around aquatic propellers to block and repel entangling debris like ropes, seaweed, and trash. The “Petals” surround the propeller blades and…
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Gorilla Vault
Packages delivered to houses get stolen too often. Gorilla Vault aims to reduce the number of delivered packages that are stolen from houses….Continue Reading Gorilla…
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High Precision Sound Velocity Measurement in Water
The capstone team developed a high precision sound velocity sensor that represents an improvement on existing designs. This type of sensor is used in a…
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HydroConnect
For the regular homeowner, the team proposes a device that attaches to faucets to track and store water usage statistics. The goal is to help…
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Microgrid Manager
In many places, grid-wide power outages wreck havoc on households. Food spoils, laundry molds, and showers go cold. To combat this issue, people have started…
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Mover Bots
Moving heavy furniture and appliances in residential settings poses a serious risk of injury. The team’s solution was to design a modular robotic system capable…
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Navigation Imaging Precision System
Autonomous drones have become increasingly prevalent in delivery, and search and rescue, however features of a suitable drone for autonomous landing could cost upwards of…
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Needle Beetle
Used hypodermic needles are a biohazardous material that has become increasingly littered on beaches in California. These needles get buried in the sand and thus…
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OLA Audio Visual Synthesizer
Synthesis in the context of music and sound design refers to the process of creating complex audio signals by generating, shaping, and modulating sound waves.…
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Scrum Champion
Scrum is a difficult methodology to properly manage. Current project management tools are very general purpose and give too much flexibility when they are used…
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Slug Path
UCSC does not have a central place for course planning, leading students to navigate scattered resources that are often confusing, time-consuming, and inaccurate. This team’s…
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Smart Dumbbell
Creating workout plans and tracking progress takes a lot of time. This project’s goal was to save time by providing an all-in-one virtual ecosystem to…
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Smart Mirror
This team’s project goal was to be able to see all desired day and global information without having to use their phone but in a…
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Smart Plant Monitor
To curb the trial-and-error approach many plant enthusiasts take when caring for their plants, we have created a system that enables users to remotely monitor…
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SMART Trash Sorting
Nearly 51.4% of trash in landfills is compostable material that had contaminants resulting inability to compost material properly. The solution is to remove contaminants from…
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SMARTFEEDR: Automatic Pet Feeder
For busy pet owners, our automatic pet feeder ensures pets are well-fed and cared for remotely. Perfect for those away for long hours or days,…