Zachery Klosterman’s love of camping and being outdoors made him notice some things about the land around him.
“I hate going outside and seeing soybean fields as far as I can see,” said Mr. Klosterman, a native of the rural village of Coldwater in western Ohio. “I just think there is a better way. A lot of our land is going to agriculture and it seems like we can clean that up a little bit.”
Mr. Klosterman was one of a team of students in the University of Toledo’s College of Engineering who presented senior projects in the Senior Design Expo at Nitschke Hall on the University of Toledo’s campus Friday.
Nearly 60 teams showcased work months in the making on subjects as varied as chess with artificial intelligence and a garden hose that sprays critters and doubles as a security camera. Students on display came from the fields of civil, electrical, and bioengineering, although some ventured beyond their chosen fields.
Mr. Klosterman, an electrical engineering major, took his team a step outside of the traditional project sphere.
“We are growing soybeans hydroponically and calculating the cost to do so,” he said, referring to the process of growing plants exclusively through a dirt-free, nutrient-rich water mixture.
While some local restaurants, like Balance Pan-Asian Grille, already use hydroponics to grow leafy greens, Mr. Klosterman said, but soybeans entirely different because of how long they take to grow.
“We found that if you grow soybeans in the field, it costs about 30 cents per pound, but if you grow them hydroponically it costs around $60 per pound,” Mr. Klosterman said. “So we are still a long way off from growing soybeans this way.”
Still, though Mr. Klosterman and the rest of his group have jobs lined up in more conventional electrical engineering and computer science roles after they graduate next week, he plans to hold onto the idea behind his plant project.
“This would be a new way of looking at agriculture,” he said, noting the amount of fertilizers and chemicals used in modern soybean growing that hydroponics avoid. “The whole point is to try and grow soy plants vertically; that way we use less land for soy plants in America. ”
The soilless plant growth group was one of many teams at the expo that came prepared with physical prototypes or models from their projects.
Nicholas Brautigam, a bioengineering major, was on a team of five that wanted to combine two medical devices to create a better one. Their creation, the Skye Walker, is a weight supporting walker for older and disabled individuals.
“This is a way to keep people in the upright position so they have the right walking posture,” Mr. Brautigam said. “We want them to have a good gait, if maybe they are learning to walk again after an accident. Like my grandma has arthritis and a bad back and muscle atrophy, so this will support her weight.”
The device, which looks like a walker with crutches sticking up on either side and supporting 25 pounds per side for the prospective patient, would have adjustable gas struts to meet users’ sizing needs in a final iteration, the team said.
Lauren Partington, a fellow bioengineering major on the Skye Walker team, said the idea for the walker came from her own work caring for a 95-year-old woman struggling with health issues.
“She walks at a 90 degree angle and has a lot of trouble,” Ms. Partington said, pointing out that in tests her group ran, spine angle increased from 58 degrees without the Skye Walker to 75 degrees with it. “She is actually in rehab right now because she has fallen three times in the past two weeks. That was a little bit of the inspiration for the project but we all know people who use walkers and the good things they can do.”
Commencement for the University of Toledo’s College of Engineering is set for May 7.
First Published April 29, 2022, 9:08 p.m.
