Making Ideas Fly Right. The winners of the best aerospace engineering project at the Fall 2019 Georgia Tech Capstone Expo are members of Team FlyRight. From left, Emily Glover, Denise Woode, Zivan Bholai, and Vikas Molleti,, and Hamidreza Nazemi. Check out the slideshow

FlyRight, an air taxi service designed to meet the demands of the thin-haul market, won the top honors for an aerospace engineering project at Georgia Tech's Fall Capstone Design Expo, held in the McCamish Pavilion December 2.

All together, 43 student-led teams from seven schools and two colleges competed in Georgia Tech's annual showcase, the largest student design competition of its kind in the country. This year, as usual, Capstone attracted sponsors from all over Georgia, from local fixtures like the Atlanta Hawks, the CDC, Cox Automotive, Emory Hospital, Georgia Department of Transportation, and Southwire, to national brands including Camelbak, Cisco, General Electric, General Motors, Lockheed Martin, the United States Air Force, and Under Armour. The return on their investment becomes clear as student projects demonstrate options for improving operations - from redesigning a smart medicine ball for the Hawks, to maximizing traffic flow on I-85 for GDOT, and coming up with a better way to process bitter leaf for cooks in Africa.

The teams who did not pursue sponsored projects came up with their own problems to tackle, designing firefighting robots, an automated tamper-proof pill dispenser, a range of medical devices, and a device for turning any writing tool into a smart device. 

The AE School fielded seven teams, each with an aeronautical challenge to resolve. The winning team, Flyright, had to address configuration selection process, weight sizing, constraint sizing, wing design, propulsion system selection, avionics, structure, weight and balance, aerodynamic analysis, and cost analysis to make their proposed airline competitive. The so-called 'thin-haul' market is one that provides a minimal level of scheduled air taxi service for smaller communities that would not otherwise have routine access to air travel. 

"The aircraft we proposed has the potential to serve as an on-demand air taxi but could also be implemented in fleets providing regular air services," said Emily Glover, one of the AE student engineers on the FlyRight team.

The Capstone Design Expo ended with the bestowal of the "best overall project" going to "Sky's the Limit," a Delta-sponsored project fielded from ISyE. The team  looked at how Delta stores and transports materials that get packed on their planes for routine flights, from pillows and blankets to snacks and soft drinks. They discovered that these items were stored in a range of warehouses and were delivered by partially filled trucks. The students found that there was a tremendous amount of money to be saved by optimizing the storage facilites and reducing the number of trucks needed to deliver items.

"The biggest challenge was working with all the different data sets," said senior and New Jersey native Afreen Fahad. "We had a lot of different data and different places that we had to consolidate together."

By combing through that data and finding a way to improve Delta's warehousing system the students came up with $750,000 in annual cost savings for Delta. They plan to pitch their proposal to the airline giant later this week.

Photo Gallery 1 | Photo Gallery 2

Overall Capstone Results

Best Overall Winner - Sky's the Limit, sponsored by Delta Airlines

Carolina Llerena (ISYE) - San Mateo, CA
Thomas Suh  (ISYE) - Augusta, GA
Kelsey Keith (ISYE) - Woodstock, GA
Mack Hathaway  (ISYE) - Atlanta, GA
Afreen Fahad (ISYE) - Mount Olive, NJ
Christine Valerie (ISYE) - Charlotte, NC
Madison Messier (ISYE) - Atlanta, GA
Priya Sharma (ISYE) - Alpharetta, GA

Aerospace Engineering - Flyright

Zivan Bholai (AE) - Orlando, FL
Denise Woode (AE) - Damascus, Maryland
Vikas Molleti (AE) - St. Pete Beach, Florida
Hamidreza Nazemi (AE) - Houston, TX
Emily Glover (AE) - Lawrenceville, Georgia

Biomedical Engineering - Bullseye, sponsored by Dr. Anand Sagar Jain, Emory Healthcare

Oscar Gutierrez (BME) - Doraville, GA
Ahmed Alnamos (BME) - Watertown, MA
Nishani Kanthasamy (BME) - Alpharetta, GA
Sondos Alnamos (BME) - Watertown MA

Civil and Envronmental Engineering- Still Design Group, sponsored by Georgia Tech's Office of Capital Planning and Space Management

Kimmie Hernandez (CE) - Sandy Springs, GA
Rachel Still (CE) - Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
Poonam Patel (CE) - Palm Harbor, FL
Danielle Kronowski (CE) - Augusta, GAystems 

Electrical and Computer Engineering- Backup Key Generation for Encrypted Website Data

Matthew Riley  (CMPE) - Decatur, GA
Maddy Parnall(EE) - Charleston, SC
Kee Hong (CMPE) - Seoul, South Korea
Michael Brzozowski (CMPE) - Manhasset, NY
Trenton Bruno (CMPE) - Warner Robins, GA
Reid Barton (EE) - Los Gatos, CA
Michael Lewis (CMPE) - Gainesville, FL

Industrial and Systems Engineering- Authority Life, sponsored by GWCCA

Peyton Skinner (ISYE) - Atlanta, GA
Mayke Vercruyssen (ISYE) - Atlanta, GA
Daniel Alayo-Matos (ISYE) - Miami, FL
Yihua Xu I(ISYE) - Hangzhou, China
Yunsang Kim (ISYE) - Seoul Korea
Brandon Kang (ISYE) - Duluth, GA
Emily Kornegay (ISYE) - Thomasville, GA
Hailun Chang (ISYE) - Taiwan

Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering- Last Mile

Seunghyun Choe (ME) - Seoul, South Korea
Kai Zhang  (ID) - Qingdao, China
David Xu (ME) - Johns Creek
Francis Lin (ID) - Shenzhen
Uyen My Tran (ID) - Lilburn, GA

Mechanical Engineering- Drink and Thrive

Ryan Bogan (CS) - Libertyville, IL
Eric Ricci (CS) - Long Beach, NY
Sean Fitzpatrick (ME) - Yardley, PA
Alexander Gibson (ME) - Roswell, GA
Thomas Malchodi (ME) - Acton, GA

Best Interdisciplinary (Tie)

Calibration Nation, sponsored by Cox Automotive

Alex Schwartz (CMPE) - Manhasset, NY
Oguzhan Yilmaz(EE) - Istanbul, Turkey
Caroline Eckrote (ME) - Suwanee, GA
Lionel Jones (CMPE) - Fayetteville, GA
Eric Hsieh (EE) - San Diego, CA
Beatriz Dias(ME) - Roswell, GA

TempTec

Nick Zhao (EE) - Mason, OH
Izaan Kamal (CS) - Rochester, NY
Vibhav Bhat (CS) - Andover, MA
Jared Canty (EE) - Johnson City, TN
Mark Saleh (ME) - Charlotte, NC
Ryan Yeung (ME) - Roswell, GA
Alex Butterwick (ME) - Alpharetta, GA