News
Elizabeth DeBartolo

Knowing that many doctors question the accuracy of automatic blood pressure cuffs led Aidan Hughes to pitch his idea to make a more accurate prototype.

For the first time, RIT will be represented at the First Nations High Power Rocket Launch design competition. Six Native American scholars have committed to building a high-powered rocket for the challenge.

Students, faculty, and alumni at RIT are participating in NASA’s national Moon to Mars initiative to build a training device and monitoring tool to help make extended space travel healthier for astronauts.

Students in RIT’s Multidisciplinary Senior Design (MSD) program worked on The Overcomer, a patented device being used by children and adults with mobility challenges to play sports at the Special Olympics and in schools, nursing care facilities, sports leagues, and homes around the world.

In a space known for innovative science and technology, Paige Manley '24 (3D digital design) is demonstrating the value of art as an aid to science through opportunities with NASA.

RIT members of the team that designed the Robo Drum—an assistive device for students at Orleans/Niagara Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES)—were honored with the New York State School Boards Association Champions of Change Award.

RIT faculty-researchers will develop a game-design training system that could help astronauts maintain balance, motor skills, and other cognitive functions while in space. NASA, in partnership with the National Space Grant Foundation, has selected six university teams, including RIT, to develop innovative design ideas that will help NASA advance and execute its Moon to Mars exploration objectives.

Multidisciplinary Senior Design is a required, two semester, design-based course for engineering students. Currently, more than 400 students are working on 80-plus projects.

RIT’s Multidisciplinary Senior Design program began last fall with more projects for engineering student teams than expected, despite the pandemic. From collaborations with other universities and NASA to an anthropologist needing a robotic model of a dinosaur tail, all the projects represent innovative technologies built with sustainable, user-friendly designs.

Biomedical engineering students Brandon Buscaglia and Marcus D’Aguiar are helping physicians see the invisible. The undergraduates developed a motorized stage and tracking prototype that works in conjunction with digital microscopes. The students’ ideas are being incorporated into a company’s tech offerings today, providing the potential to make an impact in health care applications tomorrow.

RIT is now a part of KEEN: Engineering Unleashed, a national partnership of approximately 50 universities that come together to advance engineering education. The group focuses on developing graduates who are technically prepared, understand societal changes and strategically seek opportunities to improve upon these changes.