MIE Students Present Their Capstone Projects During the 2026 Senior Design Showcase
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In early May, 30 teams of seniors from the capstone course of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) Department at the Riccio College of Engineering displayed their clever, well-engineered, practical, and useful projects during the MIE Spring 2026 Senior Design Showcase. The two winning projects, as selected through a rigorous judging system during the showcase, were Team 1508 and its Double Inverted Pendulum, which won the semester-long prize, and Team 1401’s Inovent Cable Test Station, which won the yearlong honors. See abstracts from all 30 projects here: http://rossby.acad.umass.edu/Spring26/ and https://websites.umass.edu/mie-capstone/past-projects/.
Beyond the two winning projects, seniors in the MIE department demonstrated the depth and breadth of their design expertise during the showcase, in which teams presented semester-long and yearlong projects developed in alignment with real-world engineering challenges.
The team members who developed the Double Inverted Pendulum were Olivia King (Team Lead), Aidan Cunningham (Analysis and Control Lead), Calvin Lareau (Analysis and Control Lead), Nolan Roberts (Design Lead), Daniel Hafey (Fabrication Lead), and Sean Oliphant (Evaluation Lead).
The object of this project was to improve the double-inverted-pendulum system widely used in academic settings to teach concepts such as stability analysis, nonlinear dynamics, feedback-control design, and optimal-control strategies.
As the team describes its project, “The Mechanical Engineering Department requires a double-inverted-pendulum system capable of achieving controlled stability in the inverted position while also visually demonstrating unpowered chaotic motion using integrated lighting. This system will be utilized for in-class demonstrations for MIE 344 and MIE 402, as well as course projects in MIE 410.”
According to the team, “While commercial systems exist, they are expensive and difficult to modify. This project adapts an existing single pendulum into a double-inverted system, providing a cost-effective solution while enabling deeper understanding and development of advanced control systems. Many existing systems are designed for demonstration rather than hands-on modification, making it difficult for students to explore hardware design, sensor integration, and controller development.”
The members conclude that “Our team addresses these issues by redesigning an available single-pendulum platform into a customizable double-inverted pendulum with upgraded mechanical links, sensing components, and integrated lighting for motion visualization. This approach lowers cost, increases accessibility, and creates a flexible-learning platform where students can study chaotic motion, modeling, and advanced stabilization methods such as Linear-Quadratic-Regulator control.”
The team that engineered the yearlong winning project, Inovent Cable Test Station, was made up of Brandon Lin (Team Lead), Dia Le (Analysis Lead), Uday Anand (Design Lead), Nathaniel Brancazio (Fabrication Lead), and Jack Freyler (Evaluation Lead).
The basis of this project is that the Inovent Corporation of Harwich Port, MA, has developed a new series-type, self-regulating, heat-trace cable designed to deliver safe, energy-efficient, and easy-to-install heating for industrial and commercial piping systems. However, this cable cannot be evaluated using existing heat-trace cable-testing stations, which are designed for parallel-type cable designs. This issue prevents accurate measurement of power output and temperature distribution, thus creating a gap in testing and validation.
According to the team members, “To address this [problem], the project aims to design a new testing station capable of replicating industrial-pipe environments while meeting the requirements of American National Standards Institute (ANSI) 60079-30-1.”
Based on the ANSI standards and an analysis of flow and heat transfer, the team determined that the station must maintain turbulent flow, incorporate a pump and heat exchanger for control, and support a stainless-steel test pipe of three meters, two-inch diameter with fiber-glass insulation around it.
As the team concludes, “Several layouts were developed and, with consultations with Inovent and evaluation with a House of Quality, a compact-square-loop design was selected due to its reduced surface area, lower pressure losses, and accessible cable-installation location. Project 1401 has fabricated, tested, and evaluated a testing station that aids Inovent in evaluating performance data for its series heat-trace cable.”
These two winning projects brilliantly demonstrate that MIE’s capstone design course represents the culmination of the four-year B.S. degree from the MIE department. The course develops and refines students’ abilities to plan, organize, and execute an engineering-design project, evaluate design alternatives with supporting engineering analysis, apply appropriate engineering standards, assess and optimize designs from the customer perspective, and present final designs. (June 2026)