On average, Americans spend 58 minutes a year just waiting at a red light. For most, that’s nearly 6 months of our lives.

A team of senior engineering students at the University of Toledo took on the role of problem solvers by developing an add-on to a full-scale traffic light controller, which was showcased during the college of engineering’s Senior Design Expo at Nitschke Hall on Friday.

The team’s add-on uses a microcontroller and a camera to get information on where cars are in an intersection to dictate what lights are green and what lights are red.

“We’re trying to formulate a solution on how we can decrease the traffic congestion on the roads, speed up commute time, and also improve safety,” said Jacob Yarnell, a student in the department of computer science and engineering along with team members Josh Bell, Elijah Ingram, and Chase Horney.

The idea is to increase efficiency and movement of drivers by monitoring traffic patterns in different directions and optimizing the light changing at different intervals.

“This is a real-time system,” said Matthew Franchetti, professor and the associate dean of undergraduate studies for the college of engineering. “So it’s not every 30 seconds it’s red, it’s green. It may stay green for a longer period of time if no one’s coming the other direction, because it has a camera system to know.”

More than 70 teams of Rocket engineering students showcased their creativity and ingenuity with a wide range of prototypes and projects while also tackling real-life challenges. Some collaborated with local partners like Dana Inc. and Metroparks Toledo.

“The students work on these projects for one full year,” Mr. Franchetti said. “They start with an initial problem statement, they meet with a potential client or industry, and then they work for a full semester just to understand: What is the goal of this? What is the scope? How can we help? And then the second semester, which we’re just ending now, they actually do the prototype building and testing.”

Ptah Amissah-Aidoo, along with team members Jaffar Alalwyat, Abdullah Alshammari, and William Christopher, presented “Shoe Energy,” a prototype designed to produce energy while walking.

“If you’re out hiking and you don’t have any power sources available, we wanted to take advantage of your walking energy and convert that into electrical energy,” Mr. Amissah-Aidoo said.

“We’ve got a pressure plate mechanism. Each step turns our little gear, that turns our other gears, that turns a tiny generator,” he said. “It is a magnet that spins in a coil of wire, and that, essentially, converts our mechanical energy, rotational energy, into electrical energy.”

The energy is then transmitted through the circuit into a battery for storage, which connects to a cell phone for charging, he added.

Other concepts ranged from a wearable device to identify asthmatic breathing patterns in children to a stormwater management system for a warehouse facility designed to meet its local regulatory requirements for stormwater quantity and quality control. The system is currently a finalist in the Contech Urban Stormwater and Drainage Competition.

Mechanical engineering students Brent Matus, Ben Thomas, Gabe Townsend, Edward Ragusitu, and Nick Agnello made improvements on a Rubik’s Cube solver initially developed by a previous group.

“A year ago, they built an acrylic structure, but the cube wasn’t able to move; it wasn’t able to solve anything,” Mr. Matus said. “So we were tasked with building a panel and using the structure they built to actually make the cube move and solve the scramble.”

The team used Python code and a programmable logic controller to control the motors and solve the Rubik’s Cube in two to four seconds.

The project was funded by a million-dollar grant to pitch to high schools and encourage students to consider an engineering career.

“As an engineer, you’re a really good problem solver,” Mr. Matus said. “This is really to inspire students to engage in the engineering field and down that path of, ‘How can we solve problems? How can you be a better critical thinker?’”

“The University of Toledo is really trying to attract students,” he added. “This is what you could do in your four years here.”

First Published December 6, 2024, 10:06 p.m.