UTSA engineering students showcase bold solutions to real-world problems at today’s Tech Symposium

An example of the partnerships being formed as a result of the symposium is the project by mechanical engineering seniors Matthew Juarez, Adalicia Scimia, Alan Guerra and Sarah Sultan, who collaborated with Dr. Jeffrey Ebin, founder and director of Innovation Ebcore, to develop Ebin’s idea of Athrombic Pants.

The device will help prevent dangerous blood clots from forming by providing compression to a person’s legs to help promote blood flow and potentially catch a blood clot in its early stages through monitoring the temperature of the lower body. The team also made the device more mobile and aesthetically appealing than current methods of treatment.

“These types of projects are an enormous boon to our students and their future,” said R. Lyle Hood, an assistant professor in the UTSA Department of Mechanical Engineering and sponsor of the team.

It was in Hood’s class, which focuses on medical device design development, that Juarez discovered the intersection between engineering and medicine. His interest bloomed with the realization that he could help people by designing devices to improve their quality of life. It grew even more when the project became personal.

“My grandma was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis. Having the ability to use my engineering skills to develop a medical device that could potentially help many people like my grandma has kept my interest in the field,” Juarez said.

Selecting the group of UTSA students to help fabricate the idea was an easy decision for Ebin, who expressed his and Hood’s shared passion for educating the next generation of engineers. He praised the students’ ability to listen and adapt their project accordingly.

“Students working to realize the brilliant dreams of physician-scientists like Dr. Ebin have the potential to make a fundamental impact on the lives of patients. More importantly, these students also receive tremendous benefit through having such an innovative project on their resumes that they can highlight to potential employers. These students and their work exemplify what it means to be a Roadrunner,” Hood said.

Presentations are divided into two sections. Senior Design I is for engineering students in the first semester of their senior year. They present a practical concept related to their major, using a visual display such as a poster.