The Competition

The competition was for two UBC Applied Science Faculty Awards and were presented to the most outstanding designs projects for BMEG 457, an 8-month capstone design course tackling real-world problems through engineering design solutions. Students presented their designs and prototypes for Design and Innovation Day, UBC’s annual showcase for student engineering design projects. The winning teams for the Faculty Award demonstrated overall project excellence and were selected from a panel of SBME faculty and teaching assistant judges.

Meet the winners:

EN BLOC Team

COLLABORATORS

DR. PETER BLACK
Dr. Black is a Urologic Oncologist at Vancouver General  Hospital; Senior Research Scientist, Vancouver Prostate Centre; Associate Director, Clinical Research, Vancouver Prostate Centre; Professor, Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia.

DR. DREW PHILLIPS
Dr. Phillips is a UBC Urology Resident Doctor in the Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia.

Learn more about the project below!

VIRTUAL IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE FOR SENIORS (VIES)

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Covid-19 has forced people residing in long-term care homes to be isolated. Specifically, for people with dementia, this isolation can further deteriorate their memory and overall well-being. Virtual Immersive Experience for Seniors (VIES) aims to decrease the negative side effects of isolation from Covid-19 such as anxiety, depression, loneliness, and stress, which affect the progress of people with dementia. The solution is a projected immersive video chatting application that allows people in long-term homes to connect with their loved ones while being submersed in an outside setting from the inside. A very simple and clear interface allows people with dementia to connect with others easily with little or no help. The family member or friend who is connecting from the outside is able to control the immersive environment of the person with dementia for further ease of use. Through social connection and the ability to “adventure outside”, VIES can bring joy, love, and stress relief to long-term care homes.

‘EN BLOC’ BLADDER TUMOR REMOVAL DEVICE

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Bladder cancer is managed initially by transurethral resection of the bladder tumour (TURBT). Whenever possible, many surgeons perform an ‘en bloc’ resection where the tumour is kept completely intact throughout the resection. This is a safer technique than the conventional piece-meal resection because it avoids stimulation of the obturator nerve which can lead to bladder perforation, and it provides an intact specimen for more complete pathologic analysis, including assessment of surgical margins. The main barrier with this approach is the easy extraction of the tumour from the bladder. The tumour is typically larger than the instruments surgeons have and often larger than the diameter of the urethra. There is currently no device designed to remove an ‘en bloc’ tumour specimen from the bladder. The only established approach is to fragment a larger tumour into smaller pieces after the complete ‘en bloc’ resection, but this destroys the biological architecture of the tumour, making it more challenging to assess pathologically, and it theoretically disseminates bladder cancer cells throughout the bladder. Our objective is to prototype a device capable of a safe transurethral removal of the intact tumour. A device such as this one would greatly facilitate wider adoption of en bloc TURBT with all its associated advantages for patients, surgeons, and pathologists.

En Bloc Team

Ajay Banga, Gabrielle Booth, Sophie Gjervan

CLIENTS: 

Dr. Peter Black
Urologic Oncologist at Vancouver General  Hospital; Senior Research Scientist, Vancouver Prostate Centre; Professor, Department of Urologic Sciences, UBC.

Dr. Drew Phillips
Urology Resident Doctor in the Department of Urologic Sciences, UBC

FLANKER: COMPUTATIONAL METABOLOMICS

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Metabolomics is the study of the entire set of metabolites in a biological system (Figure 1). It is an emerging and powerful technology that enables an unbiased and comprehensive view of system-wide metabolism. Although computational programs and tools have been developed in the past decade to extract the metabolic features in the raw LC-MS data, it is still a critical bioinformatic challenge in metabolomics as current computational tools lack robustness, comprehensiveness in data processing and are not user friendly or intuitive.

Flanker Team

Sam Shen, Zhibo Zhao, Milos Stamenic, Jianyu Gu

CLIENT: Dr Tao Huan
Assistant Professor, UBC Department of Chemistry

Full Project Overview

OPTIX: OPTICAL POSITION TRACKING FOR INTRAOPERATIVE X-RAYS

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Orthopedic surgeons in all countries get most of their radiation exposure from having to perform a time-consuming repetitive process that involves taking several (usually 7) X-ray shots to help determine where the C-arm should be placed. Orthopedic surgeons do this process their entire career, but long-term exposure can increase the likelihood to develop cancer, cataracts, and other disorders. Current solutions have big weaknesses such as being inaccurate or obstructing procedures due to the required hardware needed in the operating room. Our solution uses optical floor data from two cameras on the base of the C-arm to track the position of C-arm. This way we can save important locations during surgery and accurately return to those important locations without taking the extra X-ray shots. Bluetooth is used minimize the number of wires in the operating room so that procedures are not obstructed.

Optix Team

Joshua Pak, Alex Devlin, Josh De Fritas

CLIENT: Dr. Antony Hodson
Professor, UBC Department of Mechanical Engineering

Full Project Overview