August 13, 2025
By Mikey Fuller

Six teams designed, competed, and conquered at the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering's Summer 2025 ME 2110 Design Competition, but only one prevailed.

After a tight, head-to-head final matchup, Marty’s Minions took home the first-place prize, leaving Mighty Mechanics as runners-up.  

The Beavers won the Design Review, with external judges from professional practice evaluating projects on multiple criteria during a poster session where teams presented and defended their designs.

ME 2110: Creative Decisions and Design is a second-year course where students design and build to learn fundamental techniques for creating, analyzing, synthesizing, and implementing design solutions. The class concludes with a student-built robotics competition.

This semester’s theme was based on the fictional city of Stormhaven, Carolina where storms and natural disasters have damaged the city. Engineers were called upon to design an autonomous robot to assist in disaster relief and recovery efforts by delivering supplies, clearing debris, rescuing pets, and restoring power.

The instructors, Jill Fennell, Frank K. Webb Academic Professional Chair in Communication Skills, and Amit Jariwala, director of design, innovation and experiential learning, introduced a simulated exercise this semester in which students were hired as interns for a fictional company called Burdell, Inc. The “interns” were assigned to develop an engineering proposal for Stormhaven while the instructors provided feedback as if they were internship supervisors and design supervisors for the company.

In addition, Woodruff School students received a special gift thanks to alumnus and advisory board member Mark Ligler. His generous contribution funded the purchase of individual safety kits for every student, helping to strengthen the School’s culture of safety.