Seniors set to show engineering ingenuity at annual expo
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Fabricating structures in outer space presents different challenges from those on Earth. Builders must take into account managing microgravity-induced fluid behavior, operating in vacuum/radiation environments, and handling extreme temperature fluctuations, to name a few.
Undergraduate students Abraham Casas, Ari Levitan, Nati Medrano, and Paul Sarmiento took on these challenges with their Senior Design course project, Laser Welding. They will present their results on April 24 at UIC’s 2026 Engineering Expo.
Working under the direction of Assistant Professor Azadeh Haghighi, the students are working on a NASA-funded project focused on in-space welding and additive manufacturing, which seeks to enable reliable fabrication and repair of metallic structures in the harsh environment of space.
The collected data will support physics-based modeling and digital twin development for in-space welding, complementing NASA’s ongoing efforts.
“The senior design project is a crucial step in engineering education,” Levitan said. “It requires bringing together mechanical, electrical, and manufacturing engineering disciplines, along with the most important thing: project management. The experience gathered through this project prepares me to work on larger, more complicated long-term systems as part of a collaborative team.”
The annual expo will feature approximately 700 students representing about 200 teams from every department of the College of Engineering. It marks the completion of two semesters of hard work in the Senior Design course, which challenges teams of seniors to solve real-world engineering problems using research, creativity, and the skills they developed at UIC.
Among the participants will be 37 teams from mechanical and industrial engineering showcasing projects in aerospace and automotive engineering, experimental devices, clinical medical devices, industrial engineering, machine learning, mechanical design, mechanical engineering, product improvement, robotic engineering, and more.
“Our program gives students an opportunity to work in a team environment, solving an industry-sponsored project,” Clinical Associate Professor Mike Brown said. “They experience the issues they will encounter in scheduling, dealing with project budgets and co-workers, their UIC advisor and sponsor, doing research in new technologies, and being responsible for their work.”
The expo will take place on Friday, April 24, from 1-4 pm at Credit Union 1 Arena, 525 S. Racine Ave, Chicago. The event is free and open to the public; tickets are not required to attend.