Student teams highlight sustainability in interdisciplinary capstone projects

The Interdisciplinary Capstone faculty introduced updated program requirements at the 2024-2025 Craig M. Berge Design Day Open House. Teams are now required to approach their designs with an environmentally conscious mindset and have freedom to decide where that requirement is met.

“It’s important that we teach our engineers to always be thinking about sustainability as they design,” Steve Larimore, lead program instructor, told the sponsors.

Capstone Team 25047 is developing a multichambered box for sponsor Raytheon, an RTX business, that will control temperature and humidity for storage of 3D printer filament.

Filaments are materials fed into 3D printers that turn digital designs into a physical product. Raytheon’s Additive Manufacturing Lab in Tucson uses filament to print a variety of items for customers, but proper storage has been a problem. Filament must be stored in low humidity and requires preheating before it’s fed into the printer.

“Right now, they’re storing filament in Tupperware-like containers to try and preserve it from the humidity, and they don't have any way to preheat them,” said Ryan Raad, project lead and ECE major.

Multiple teams are tackling the sustainability requirement in unexpected ways.