Projects

Buoyancy Engine CAN Communications (BECAN) is a user-controlled buoyancy engine designed to regulate the depth of a buoyant platform in aquatic environments. Precise depth control remains a significant engineering challenge for applications such as autonomous underwater vehicle docking and environmental monitoring. BECAN addresses this need by enabling controlled adjustment of system buoyancy through regulated water intake and release. This system provides a potential solution for industries and environmental agencies that require reliable underwater positioning and adaptive response to changing conditions.

The bordering countries of the United States and Mexico are growing rapidly, both internally and externally, within their trade engagements. The current movement of goods, services, and people at the San Diego-Baja California border is becoming inadequate to suit these needs. A connecting road between California State Route 11 (SR 11) and Otay Mesa East Port of Entry (OME POE) is constructed to better suit expansion in the region. The project serves to improve movement across the border, particularly by reducing vehicle wait times. Additionally, gas emissions produced by the transportation of goods, services, and passengers will be reduced. As the area is expected to remain running for years, the project is also set to support economic growth by creating additional job opportunities near the border.

The portion assigned to Connect & Carry Co. is a smaller component of the overall project, the design of a 320...

LAMB Associates is working with Q3 Consulting on a drainage master plan study in the City of Laguna Beach for a 260-acre watershed. Canyon Acres Drive in Laguna Beach has experienced flooding during peak rain seasons during the past decades. The project focuses on evaluating the existing storm drain beneath Canyon Acres Drive to determine its existing capacity and identify the required size for a proposed storm drain to convey targeted runoff.

See every shade, save every life

CHROMAskin is a 2025-2026 UCI BioENGINE Senior Capstone Project in collaboration with the team at DermaVision Technologies and University of California, Irvine Biomedical Engineering Department.

Our Cause

Why skin cancer diagnostics?

1 in 5 Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer by age 70. This looks like over 9,500 new cases a day. As for the 5-year survival and late stage diagnostic rates for skin cancer, these fluctuate greatly between different ethnic groups with African Americans being particularly marginalized.

Industry Standard

What is the current diagnostic process?

Initial skin cancer screening involves using a dermascopy tool, the primary non-invasive method,which is subjective and leads to less accurate diagnostics. This issue is further amplified for patients with darker skin tones. Even experienced physicians...

Clear surgical visibility in humid operating rooms.

An affordable clamp-on airflow attachment for ophthalmic microscopes. The system directs controlled airflow near the optical path to reduce lens fogging and help surgeons maintain visibility with fewer workflow interruptions.

Fogging interrupts surgery.

Patient breathing, humid rooms, and long procedures can create condensation near the microscope lens. A low-cost retrofit can reduce interruptions without replacing existing microscopes.

A practical visibility problem in low-resource surgical settings

In warm, humid operating rooms, microscope lenses can fog during cataract and other ophthalmic procedures. Reduced visibility can break concentration, slow the procedure, and require repeated manual clearing.

• Fogging blocks the surgeon’s view during precision work
• Manual clearing delays the procedure and disrupts sterile workflow
• Existing solutions can be costly, bulky, or inconsistent

Wildfires pose a significant threat to ecosystems, infrastructure, and public safety, creating a need for faster and more reliable detection systems. This project develops a collaborative edge–cloud architecture that integrates environmental sensors, UAV imagery, and machine learning models to detect wildfire ignition early. Edge-based models provide fast, low-power detection, while cloud-based models verify events using high-accuracy image analysis. This system improves detection speed, reduces false alarms, and enables monitoring in remote or resource-limited environments.

The RC boat to submarine project addresses the critical need for non-invasive, cost-effective monitoring of marine ecosystems by developing a submersible capable of autonomous species identification. By integrating a Raspberry Pi 4 for real-time image processing, the vehicle can detect and categorize marine life based on color and pattern recognition through its acrylic dome, providing researchers with high-fidelity data without disturbing the natural habitat. This matters because traditional manual surveying is often limited by diver depth constraints and the high cost of industrial submersibles, whereas this Pixhawk-stabilized platform offers a scalable solution for long-term biodiversity tracking. This technology directly benefits marine biologists and conservationists by automating the cataloging of indicator species, ultimately aiding in the protection of vulnerable aquatic environments through precise, localized data collection.

Background:

Aquatic environments are essential for environmental monitoring, infrastructure inspection, and scientific research, yet they remain challenging to study due to...

The RC boat to submarine project addresses the critical need for non-invasive, cost-effective monitoring of marine ecosystems by developing a submersible capable of autonomous species identification. By integrating a Raspberry Pi 4 for real-time image processing, the vehicle can detect and categorize marine life based on color and pattern recognition through its acrylic dome, providing researchers with high-fidelity data without disturbing the natural habitat. This matters because traditional manual surveying is often limited by diver depth constraints and the high cost of industrial submersibles, whereas this Pixhawk-stabilized platform offers a scalable solution for long-term biodiversity tracking. This technology directly benefits marine biologists and conservationists by automating the cataloging of indicator species, ultimately aiding in the protection of vulnerable aquatic environments through precise, localized data collection.

Background:

Aquatic environments are essential for environmental monitoring, infrastructure inspection, and scientific research, yet they remain challenging to study due...

The CubeSat Avionics and Attitude Control System focuses on developing flight software for a 2U (10x10x20 cm) nanosatellite. We designed algorithms to control the attitude, or orientation, of the satellite using only magnetorquers. A magnetorquer is a coil of wire that generates a localized magnetic field when a current goes through it; this magnetic field produces a torque to turn the satellite. Our software drives the magnetorquer to achieve detumbling, spin stabilization, and inertial pointing of the satellite.

CubeSat ADCS requirements are driven by tight power/mass budgets yet mission success depends on reliable detumbling and pointing. We are building a magnetorquer-only ADCS and avionics stack for a 2U CubeSat that uses multi-mode control (B-dot detumble, spin stabilization, and inertial pointing) and FreeRTOS-based flight software on STM32, validated via hardware-in-the-loop simulation.

The Dance Pose Estimation project addresses the challenge of providing individualized feedback to large groups of dancers by creating an automated 3D pose evaluation web application. Traditional dance education often lacks the resources for instructors to give every student personalized instruction, which can slow down the learning process during private practice. By utilizing computer vision to compare student movements against a reference routine, the system empowers students to refine their technique independently while allowing instructors to focus on high-level group guidance. This project matters because it bridges the gap between digital accessibility and professional dance pedagogy, directly benefiting students and educators at institutions like the UCI Department of Dance.

Making the Invisible Visible

DermaVision is developing DermaSpect, a portable multispectral imaging device that uses UV-A, visible, and near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths to capture subsurface bruise information that may not be visible under standard lighting conditions. Our goal: improve consistency, objectivity, and equity in clinical and forensic imaging.

The Problem

Why This Matters

Bruise documentation plays an important role in both healthcare and forensic investigations, especially in cases involving domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, and physical trauma. However, current bruise assessment methods still rely heavily on visual inspection and standard photography, which are subjective and inconsistent.

According to national statistics, over 10 million domestic violence cases occur annually in the United States, and approximately 44.2% of victims are people of color. Existing bruise detection and aging methods are often less accurate on highly pigmented skin because melanin absorbs much of...

Wireless communication research requires testing and verification in constantly changing environments. However, existing wireless testing platforms are costly, difficult to operate, or offer limited user configurability. This project presents a practical, low-cost, vehicle-based wireless research platform designed to address these limitations. By using affordable off-the-shelf components, we have developed an adaptable wireless network testing interface that is user friendly and easily configurable, providing a reliable and flexible testbed for experimental research.

UCI Design/Build/Fly (DBF) began in 2004, competing in that year’s AIAA competition with only 37 teams participating. Since then, the team has grown tremendously in both membership and technical sophistication. Today, UCI DBF competes against over 100 international teams, tackling new and complex design challenges each year. The team is composed of passionate students from various engineering disciplines who work together to design, manufacture, and test a fully functional remote-controlled aircraft that meets the competition’s unique mission requirements. Beyond the competition, UCI DBF provides students with hands-on experience in aerodynamics, structures, controls, electronics, and project management, preparing them for future careers in the aerospace and engineering industries.

Our team focuses on Mission 3 of the upcoming DBF competition, where we are required to stow, deploy, tow, and release a banner displaying our university logo. The primary problem this project addresses is the challenge of performing this sequence...

Access California Services (ACS), a nonprofit based in Anaheim, has requested a new single-story 15,000-square foot building that will house three services: senior daycare, childcare, and a health clinic. The new services will allow ACS to further their mission of empowering underserved communities. While one story will be constructed in the immediate future, a two-story building will be designed in case there are enough resources for a future expansion. The biggest priorities for this project are safety through code compliance and staying within the budget.

DiagNose

Making speech assessment accessible through a portable, child-friendly nasometer.

About us

For a child born with a cleft palate, surgery is only the beginning of the journey. The real challenge is finding their voice. In low-income countries, where the majority of cleft palate cases occur, the 'gold standard' for diagnosing hypernasality is a clinician's ear. It is subjective, inconsistent, and prone to error. While objective tools like nasometers exist, they cost thousands of dollars, making them inaccessible in the communities that need them the most. We at DiagNose seek to change that with tinytalk.

The Mission

Redefining how we measure and analyze speech nasality.

tinytalk was born from the need to identify nasal air emission and hypernasality in children with cleft palate that is affordable and portable. By combining high-tech...

Diality is a medical device company that aims to improve lives impacted by kidney disease through the development of the next generation of hemodialysis machines for at-clinic or at-home usage. A hemodialysis machine continuously extracts blood from a patient, runs it through a dialyzer--which acts as an artificial kidney to filter out waste and excess fluids--and reintroduces the filtered blood into the patient's system. This treatment process occurs three times per week for three to four hours per session depending on the patient's support needs. A common issue with treatment currently is knowing the correct Blood Volume Removal Rate (BVRR) for each patient. If the BVRR is too low, the treatment becomes inefficient and takes longer than required, but if it is too high, the patient's blood pressure could drop significantly putting the patient at risk of complications such as dizziness or loss of consciousness. Poor reactions such as...

Drop Tower Systems focuses on the design and development of a low-cost drop weight impact tower for UCI Engineering. The system addresses the current lack of an in-house method for applying controlled dynamic loads to materials and components, as existing campus equipment is primarily limited to quasi-static hydraulic load frame testing. This project matters because many real-world engineering applications, including aerospace composites and automotive structures, involve impact and dynamic loading conditions that static tests cannot fully capture.

The final design is a 52.5" tall, wood-framed tower capable of delivering up to 100 J of impact energy through a guided 12"×12" A36 steel drop weight plate and an A2 tool steel tup with hemispherical geometry compliant with ASTM standards. The system supports variable impact energies through both adjustable supplemental weights, up to 22.5 lbs of total drop weight, and a simple rope and lock mechanism that allows drop...

Drop Tower Systems focuses on the design and development of a low-cost drop weight impact tower for UCI Engineering. The system is intended to address the current lack of an in house method for applying controlled dynamic loads to materials and components, since existing campus equipment is primarily limited to static testing. This project matters because many real world engineering applications involve impact and other dynamic loading conditions that static tests cannot fully represent. The final design is meant to support students, faculty, and project teams by providing a safer, more repeatable, and more accessible way to validate components and materials under realistic loading conditions.

Restoring Ears. Restoring Childhoods.

Earicular is a tissue-engineered reconstruction project to restore natural ear shape for patients with congenital deformities.

Engineering a path to natural ear restoration

Earicular combines clinical insight, allograft tissue, and 3D bioprinting to address microtia in a way that's gentler on patients.

Industrial environments often require workers to interact closely with robotic machinery, creating safety risks during operation and maintenance. This project addresses the need for a safer and more responsive control interface by developing EchoSafe, a low-power edge-AI speech keyword detection system. The system allows operators to control machinery using voice commands such as “go” and “stop,” reducing the need for manual interaction near hazardous equipment. By running entirely offline, the system also improves reliability, security, and privacy compared to cloud-based voice systems.

Transforming blind nasogastric tube placement into an ultrasound-guided procedure to enhance neonatal safety and care

Background

One in ten infants in the United States is born prematurely, and many rely on nasogastric (NG) tubes to receive medication and enteral nutrition. However, neonatal nasogastric tube insertion is a blind procedure, and tube misplacement has been reported in up to 59% of cases, leading to serious complications such as aspiration, perforation, and mortality.

Problem

Current confirmation methods, X-ray and gastric pH testing, also present significant limitations. Chest radiography, the current clinical gold standard, exposes infants to ionizing radiation and can further delay timely care. Gastric pH testing may also be unreliable in neonates due to limited aspirate volumes and the effects of acid-suppressive medications.

Mission

Our mission is to improve neonatal safety by enabling fast, accurate, and non-invasive confirmation of nasogastric...

Hyperloop is an innovative high-speed transportation concept in which pods travel at up to 760 mph through a near-vacuum tunnel. To reach those speeds, the pod must eliminate nearly all friction with the track, which is achieved through magnetic levitation (maglev). 

One method of integrating maglev technology is electromagnetic suspension (EMS). With EMS, electromagnets on the pod produce an attractive force to a magnetized material on the track, lifting the vehicle off the surface entirely. UC Irvine's Hyperloop student team, HyperXite, needs to demonstrate that this technology works at a small scale before it can be integrated into a full-size pod. Without a working levitation prototype, the team has no way to validate their design choices, test their control systems, or demonstrate the concept to advisors and sponsors.

This project matters because magnetic levitation is the key to making Hyperloop viable. It's what separates it...

Hyperloop is an innovative high-speed transportation concept in which pods travel at up to 760 mph through a near-vacuum tunnel. To reach those speeds, the pod must eliminate nearly all friction with the track, which is achieved through magnetic levitation (maglev). 

One method of integrating maglev technology is electromagnetic suspension (EMS). With EMS, electromagnets on the pod produce an attractive force to a magnetized material on the track, lifting the vehicle off the surface entirely. UC Irvine's Hyperloop student team, HyperXite, needs to demonstrate that this technology works at a small scale before it can be integrated into a full-size pod. Without a working levitation prototype, the team has no way to validate their design choices, test their control systems, or demonstrate the concept to advisors and sponsors.

This project matters because magnetic levitation is the key to making Hyperloop viable. It's what separates it...

Traditional prosthetics are often prohibitively expensive, ranging from $5,000 to over $100,000, and frequently require invasive medical procedures to function. This leaves many individuals in need of amputee care unable to afford or comfortably access life-changing mobility aids. To address this critical accessibility issue, our project developed a low-cost, electromyography (EMG) controlled prosthetic hand that utilizes a non-invasive dry-electrode placed on the user's wrist. By eliminating the need for invasive procedures and drastically reducing manufacturing expenses, this project demonstrates the viability of highly accessible, neural-network-driven prosthetics for a broader demographic