Texas A&M University VIP Program


College Station, Texas 77843, United States
Website

Texas A&M University

College Station, Texas 77843
United States
Latitude: 30.612884
Longitude: -96.340305

The Institution

Texas A&M University aims to be the standard for world-class universities of the future by combining knowledge, research, and innovation to create solutions that will change the world. As Aggies, we strive to lead by example in everything we do. With such a varied academic environment, Texas A&M is full of possibilities for students. The mission of the College of Engineering is to serve Texas, the nation, and the global community by providing engineering graduates who are well founded in engineering fundamentals, instilled with the highest standards of professional and ethical behavior, and prepared to meet the complex technical challenges of society.

The Program

In 2012 the College of Engineering at Texas A&M established a signature program titled AggiE_Challenge to engage engineering undergraduates in vertically integrated, multi-disciplinary research team projects for course credit. Through AggiE_Challenge, undergraduate students interact with faculty and graduate student mentors to tackle Grand Challenges in Engineering. Students are encouraged to participate in AggiE_Challenge for more than one semester and develop breadth of knowledge beyond their major and skills to support effective collaborations across disciplines (for example, T-Shaped engineer). Furthermore, teams that show exceptional progress are invited to participate in the Summer Lean Startup 10-week program designed to support teams pursuing commercial potential of the technologies developed under the program. Our contributions to the VIP Consortium includes: 1) one of the largest VIP sites in the country, 2) one of the VIP sites that requires all teams to engage at least three majors in a team, 3) extensive experience in assessment, with instruments and processes that can be shared across the consortium.

Directors

Magda Lagoudas
979-862-8321

VIP Teams

  • Scalable Manufacturing of Tissue-Mimetic Hydrogels for Biological Research and Discovery
    Engineer a system for manufacturing hydrogel membranes with tunable properties. Engineer a system for precision manufacturing of hydrogel microspheres. Interdisciplinary training for students that spans biomedical, materials, chemical, mechanical, and electrical engineering
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  • Miniature Autonomous Pipeline Robots for Aging Water Infrastructure
    Our goal is to develop a robotic inspection platform capable of full autonomy. This includes the capability to (a) harvest energy from the surrounding environment, (b) navigate and maneuver through a live pipeline network, (c) collect data concerning structural health and gas quality and (d) store/transmit any important data to other robots or a base station.
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  • Point of Care Health Informatics for Proactive Epilepsy Seizure Alert
    Develop a model for prediction of pre-seizure state. Integration, testing and design refinement of a wearable wireless device for EEG data acquisition. Develop an app to wirelessly operate the device and provide graphical user interface for seizure monitoring and alert.
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  • Superhydrophillip Filter Paper for Effective Oil Recovery from Oil Contaminated Wastewater
    Our goal is to develop a low-cost environmental-friendly membrane system for separating oil from water, and remediating the environmental incidents. Students will not only benefit from the interdisciplinary knowledge accumulated during the project, but also from a better understanding how science is practiced in the real world.
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  • Tools for Discovery & Engineering Better Medicines: Bioprinted Cancer Models
    Students will be joining a team of continuing students in reconstructing a 3D model of a patient’s local tumor site in a computer-aided design software that could be used to control the spatial positioning of multiple printer heads. Bioinks will be designed and tested by team members using biomedical and mechanical principles in order to print both normal tissue and cancer-esque tissues. The 3D...
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  • Scalable Clean Water- Vapor-Compression Desalination
    The project will focus on assessing water demand and its supply in various regions of Texas. We will employ Advanced Vapor-Compression Desalination (VCD), a technology that has been developed through AggiE Challenge for the past three years. In coastal regions, Advanced VCD will desalinate seawater directly. In inland regions, Advanced VCD will concentrate brine from an RO plant, which will...
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  • Low-cost Polymeric Microcantilever Sensor Array for Point of Care (POC) Personal Medical Treatment Applications
    Develop highly sensitive, low-cost biosensors using 3D printing and micro-fabrication. Detect disease-causing pathogen using smartphone. Develop a user-friendly smartphone app to interact with patient or doctor. Implement image processing techniques to automate data processing.
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  • Rapid Production of Engineered Tubular Tissues by Rotary Jet Spinning
    We have demonstrated that rotary jet spinning successfully produces microfiber networks of polymers accepted by the FDA for surgical implantation. Importantly, we can collect these fibers on spinning mandrels to rapidly generate tubular scaffolds that support cell culture. These scaffolds mimic the fibrillar architecture of human tissues. Prototypes for the rotary jet spinning system and...
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  • Developing a Setup to Mass Produce Nanofibers with Applications in Water Purification
    Our goal is to establish the first prototype to manufacture polymeric nanofiber mats in a scalable, solvent-free and environmentally friendly manner which is then to be applied for water purification. Students are split up into 2 teams: The team 1 will be in charge of material processing, such as microfiber fabrication as precursor to nanofibers, while team 2 will be in charge of the...
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  • Automated Building Energy Efficiency Analysis
    The aim of the project is to develop a commercially viable device capable of (1) autonomous navigation of a building and (2) building lighting assessment. This requires the development of two distinct systems. 1. A handheld device capable of assessing the lighting within a building while being transported by an individual. 2. An autonomous vehicle capable of navigation of a building for the...
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  • Design & Control of a Vibration-Added Haptic Device for Minimally Invasive Surgical Simulation
    Our goals are to design a new component with vibration actuator to retrofit the current system and to develop/program an algorithm in the system software. We will also perform psychophysical studies to determine the limits of human perception to the vibration. Students will be primarily split into two groups, a design team and a programming team. Although different focuses, both teams are...
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  • Self-Powered Health Monitoring System
    Build an integrated system for harvesting electrical energy from body heat as well as sensing/transmitting bio data to central processing units for continuous realtime health monitoring.
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Methods and Technologies

Majors

Grand Challenges