{"447751":{"#nid":"447751","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Team Wins Best Design at National Biomedical Engineering Competition","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESix Georgia Tech biomedical engineering (BME) students won the best design category among teams developing solutions for an improved epidural delivery system. They were competing in the Biomedical Engineering Society\u2019s (BMES) Coulter College event held August 13-16, 2015 in Coral Gables, Florida. More than 60 teams apply for the competition, but only a third of them are invited to participate. BME\u2019s winning team consisted of Emma Mihevc, Cory Turbyfield, Joshua Bugica, Alex Hubbard, Emma Poe-Yamagata, and Will McAllister. They were competing against Johns Hopkins, Boston University, Florida State, and other notable programs. They participated in the both the design and best pitch competitions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe Georgia Tech BME team did an amazing job of representing our department and our university,\u201d said James Rains, BME\u2019s director of capstone design in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory.\u0026nbsp; \u201cI received many compliments regarding their performance throughout the event, but was blown away with their great team work, ingenuity, and polished presentation skills.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECoulter College is a training program focused on translation of biomedical innovations. Student design teams are guided by faculty and clinical experts through a highly dynamic process designed to help them better understand how innovations can meet clinical needs while providing tools and approaches used to evolve identified problems into novel solutions. The program is supported by the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the competition, student teams are given a list of unmet clinical needs, they research and rank their top choices. Shortly afterwards, they are notified of the unmet clinical need they will address and given an assignment to prepare. In this case, they were asked to work on an epidural system.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe design process is one of my favorite things about being an engineering student,\u201d said BME student Alex Hubbard. \u201cThe Coulter College made designing even more fun by providing each team with a box of materials like modeling clay, Tinker Toys, pipe cleaners, and trig cards with interesting prompts to encourage creativity while brainstorming. We followed a \u2018no-negativity\u2019 rule such that whenever someone had an idea that seemed far-fetched, we weren\u0027t allowed to say anything negative about it, so we went off on several crazy tangents.\u0026nbsp; One of these tangents was inspired by reading cards that encouraged us to relocate the epidural process or alter the process such that a physician wouldn\u0027t need to come near the patient, both of which seem ridiculous at first glance.\u0026nbsp; However, a few crazy tangents later, we came upon the idea of encasing the medications delivered during a normal epidural injection in a hydrogel or other polymer, injecting that solution into the patient\u0027s epidural space weeks before the due date, and activating it via ultrasound upon when the patient arrives at the hospital to give birth.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECory Turbyfield added, \u201dfor me, the coolest part of the competition was all of the people there: BME students, professors, clinicians, CEOs, designers, professionals, and more. Everyone brought with them their own set of experiences, and we had the opportunity to learn from each and everyone one of them.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team\u2019s idea and subsequent presentation earned the team the best design award at the competition.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u201cThey worked their butts off staying up to 3:00 a.m. each night and being there bright and early at 7:00 a.m. to start it all over again\u2014 for four consecutive days.\u0026nbsp; I am not sure how they were able to even start classes on Monday,\u201d said Rains.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EContact:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:wrich@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EWalter Rich\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003EWallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Six BME students compete in intensive four day national BMES Coulter College competition"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESix Georgia Tech biomedical engineering (BME) students won the best design category among teams developing solutions for an improved epidural delivery system. They were competing in the Biomedical Engineering Society\u2019s (BMES) Coulter College event held August 13-16, 2015 in Coral Gables, Florida.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Six Georgia Tech biomedical engineering students won the best design category in the BMES Coulter College competition"}],"uid":"27513","created_gmt":"2015-09-14 16:23:23","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:19:33","author":"Walter Rich","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-09-03T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-09-03T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"447731":{"id":"447731","type":"image","title":"Georgia Tech Team at Coulter College Competition, Aug. 2015","body":null,"created":"1449256246","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 19:10:46","changed":"1475895189","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:53:09","alt":"Georgia Tech Team at Coulter College Competition, Aug. 2015","file":{"fid":"203253","name":"20150816_113203_001.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/20150816_113203_001_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/20150816_113203_001_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":4346761,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/20150816_113203_001_0.jpg?itok=BOJq5IT1"}}},"media_ids":["447731"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"249","name":"Biomedical Engineering"},{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"141271","name":"Coulter College"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMedia Contacts:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:wrich@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EWalter Rich\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003EWallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["wrich@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}