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Team Members: Luke Smith, Ryan Eli and Tejas Targe

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: Jace Jarding

The Ridge Float is a hitch-mounted cargo carrier that serves a double purpose as a two-person boat.

Team Members: Ryan VanPelt, Aiden Magnuson and Logan Turgasen

Adviser: Lyle Mangen

Sponsor: The Grain Weevil Corporation

The grain weevil is a robot designed to work inside grain bins, protecting farmers by reducing the need for them to enter a grain bin. Our project goal is to create a hardware solution for grain weevil, allowing their operators to be “hands-free” during the recharging process. The robot will be retrieved from inside the grain bin, debris will be removed and the robot will be docked into the charger. After charging is complete, the robot is returned to the work surface. This solution further protects farmers from needing to enter, climb or work within grain bins.

Team Members: Dawson Gulizia, Brock Hansen and Theodore Carlson

Adviser: Lyle Mangen

Sponsor: South Dakota Soybean Processors

This senior design project focuses on designing and manufacturing a soybean hull milling and bagging system capable of loading product into supersacks. The existing mill requires frequent operator involvement, has inconsistent grounding and limited throughput. The proposed design aims to improve throughput, feeding consistency and automate supersack handling, with a target capacity of two tons per hour. Additional features include pneumatic controls, improved guarding, vibration-assisted bag filling and static mitigation. The final system is intended to improve safety, increase consistency and enhance overall efficiency while providing a more reliable and effective processing solution.

Team Members: Trevor Sieberg and Cameron Bennett

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: Sieberg Drone Services

Involves designing and building a modular drone spray trailer to support the operation of two large agricultural spray drones. The trailer features an elevated flight deck, integrated chemical storage for multiple products and an automated mixing system capable of quickly preparing precise chemical blends. It also includes a distributed lighting system designed for improved nighttime visibility without overwhelming the operator. The system emphasizes efficiency, safety and scalability, with the goal of creating a practical solution that can be customized and potentially commercialized for use in modern agricultural drone operations.

Team Members: Dylan Peterson, Ryan Busch, Ethan Hof, Reilly Hoops and Amanuel Ayalew

Adviser: Jason Sternhagen

Sponsor: Jerry Natzel

A remote-controlled universal tool carrier designed with modular, independently rotating legs that allow both standard and crab drive movement for enhanced maneuverability. The platform includes attachment points for interchangeable tools, allowing it to be adapted for a wide range of applications. Future development will incorporate autonomous features to enable hands-off operation.

Team Members: Chase Maher, Riley Gill and Keith Schenkel

Adviser: Douglas Peters

Sponsor: Wild Hare Racing

This senior design project focuses on improving the suspension system of the Wild Hare Racing Formula SAE race car. The goal is to enhance handling precision and overall vehicle performance while minimizing weight and maintaining compliance with Formula SAE rules. The team is evaluating suspension geometry, steering characteristics and linkage design to optimize vehicle behavior and maximize performance on the competition skid pad.

Team Members: Cole Arends, Braydon Thornton, Braxton McGrath, Caleb Lauinger and Ange Anin

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: Luverne Peterson, �ձ�av��Ƶ Foundation, Dean Kumar, Associate Dean Kavasseri

Our senior design team is developing South Dakota’s first autonomous vehicle operating on a university campus. The project integrates AI-powered stereo cameras and onboard computing to perceive the environment and navigate safely. Using this sensor data, the vehicle identifies obstacles and follows routes across campus. We also developed a custom navigation interface that allows users to select destinations and generate optimal routes. By combining artificial intelligence, computer vision and vehicle control systems, this project demonstrates a cost effective, safety-focused platform for autonomous transportation on campuses and other controlled environments.

Team Members: Dawson Wade, Connor Vuong, Garrett Foley, Ryan Downing and William Karels

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: Todd Letcher

This project continues the development of a previous senior design project to develop an autonomous snowblower. The goal of the current project is to enhance and refine the system to autonomously remove snow from a defined rectangular section of Dr. Letcher’s driveway. The primary objective is to create a reliable, efficient system that consistently clears snow without human intervention, thereby improving safety, convenience and performance during winter conditions.

Team Members: Eric Bauer, John Bennett and Tharushi Tilakaratne

Adviser: Michael Twedt

Sponsor: LifeScape

This project focuses on the design of a collapsible, mobile sensory structure intended to provide a calming and immersive environment for individuals with sensory needs. The goal is to develop a safe, portable and collapsible system that accommodates a single user while remaining within a limited budget. Initial work is centered on defining the design scope, customer requirements and engineering constraints through a meeting with the project client. Current progress includes identifying mobility, stability and storage as primary design drivers. This study includes the problem definition, early design considerations and preliminary engineering direction.

Team Members: Amee Parmar, George Fraher and Ben Gashaw

Adviser: Ken Gamradt

Sponsor: Becky Schmieding

Peace Lutheran Church and School was spending significant time manually collecting availability from parents and staff and piecing together a daily childcare schedule by hand. The solution is a functional web application that facilitates staff and parent scheduling, along with administrator functions designed to simplify scheduling. Parents can submit their children's attendance for the month, selecting individual days or date ranges in a single session. Staff can submit their weekly availability. Administrators get a calendar view where they can browse submissions, adjust any attendance record and export a complete daily roster as an Excel spreadsheet.

Team Members: Ryan Bornhoft, Dylan Jensen, Isaac Arduser and Supriya Paudel

Adviser: Ken Gamradt

Sponsor: Brooke Maday

This project is a behavior tracker application. It allows Arise Academy staff to log students' behaviors and generate reports that track trends in order to better foster student success. The goal is to streamline their current process (Excel spreadsheets) by creating a user-friendly and intuitive application that satisfies their requirements.

Team Members: Cade Dudgeon, Elijah Baldwin and Derek Welbig

Adviser: Christopher Schmit

Sponsor: Brian Hoellein, Bartlett & West

The Rapid City Booster Station is a pump station that helps provide drinking water to an expanding residential zone known as Shepherd Hills on the east side of Rapid City. This booster station takes water from existing zones and provides the pressure needed to supply the growing Shepherd Hills zone. The booster station is designed to supply five MGD and provide 200 feet of head. These parameters will provide the residents of Shepherd Hills with adequate water pressure and allow for appropriate fire flows for both Shepherd Hills and North Rapid.

Team Members: Justin Ptak and Zachary Tverberg

Adviser: Michael Twedt

Sponsor: Persona Signs

Design and develop a weatherproof, lockable battery storage system to power 5-100-watt signage applications. The system will protect against environmental conditions, prevent unauthorized access and provide reliable, portable power for outdoor use. Emphasis is placed on durability, safety, ease of installation and cost-effective manufacturing.

Team Members: Maddi Gerlach, Harrison Klein, Max Pelham, Erika Kuntz and Kassim Kassim

Adviser: Akram Jawdhari

Sponsor: Yanling Leng

This project covers a structure replacement outside of Crooks. The current structure is a 56’ x 35’ bridge. This 40-year-old bridge has already undergone repairs and is currently experiencing spalling, efflorescence and shear cracks on the concrete. Initial design alternatives were a single span steel girder bridge, a precast box culvert and a cast-in-place box culvert. The selected replacement is a cast-in-place, three-sided, three-cell box culvert due to it having a high design flexibility, lower cost and the ability to be a continuous structure not requiring joints. Design will cover interior walls, exterior walls and the main slab.

Team Members: Bryson Love, Alex Diersen, Rylie-Sky Stoll, Rachel Ziegeldorf, Bennett Foster, Gavin Neu and Channing Bloedel

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: Aerospace Club

SELENE is a sample return mission concept that is responsible for identifying, acquiring, storing and eventually returning lunar samples from the surface of the south pole region of the moon. Innovations for this project include a rotary-percussive core drill that is able to maintain important geological layers of regolith as well as a robust concept of operations that is able to be extended to future Martian missions.

Team Members: Sam Nilsson and Jacob Hinders

Adviser: Lyle Mangen

Sponsor: Agtegra Cooperative

This project developed a semi-automated packaging line for Agtegra Cooperative to repackage bulk crop protection chemicals into 2.5-gallon jugs. A scale proof-of-concept system was constructed to demonstrate volumetric flow metering, filling and system operation using "off-the-shelf" meters and controllers. In addition, an industrial design was created for the final installed system. The install design was created using the same core principals as the proof-of-concept, taking what we learned and applying it create a more robust design. The final design also upgrades to industrial components for durability and accuracy.

Team Members: Matthew Croke, Ethan Untiedt, Zach Winter and Brandon Burggraff

Adviser: Michael Pawlovich

Sponsor: Tom Cook – HDR

This corridor study covers a 13-mile segment along SD115. The existing roadway begins as a two-lane undivided highway with turn lanes at major intersections, then transitions to a two-lane undivided highway with a continuous center turn lane. This study responds to anticipated traffic growth over the next 25-30 years. It aims to identify roadway improvements that will maximize pavement life after construction, support traffic growth, address major safety concerns and enhance access management. Considering these factors, we conducted an alternative analysis and ultimately decided to design aspects that improved capacity and safety while minimizing cost.

Team Members: Kale Nelson, Darik Kebede, Kaleab Gessese and Kaleab Zerihun

Adviser: Ken Gamradt

Sponsor: Chulwoo Pack

A near real-time video monitoring system that takes in specific frames from a web cam to identify certain user specified anomalies. The project contains a video anomaly detection model, various performance-based metrics, a notification/logging system for identified anomalies and more.

Team Members: Ethan Schultz, John Akujobi, Rachel Janssen and Lilli Powell

Adviser: Xiaojun Xian

Sponsor: Lacy Knutson

The IMPACT Helmet aims to help tailor treatment of autistic children by monitoring their environment and then send data to parents and therapists.

Team Members: Madyson Wantoch, Charles Hartman, Mckenna DuFrene and Jonathon Rames

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: South Dakota Space Grant Consortium

S.P.I.D.E.R. is a hexapod robot designed to carry out nondestructive testing inside of commercial aircraft fuel tanks.

Team Members: Nicholas Ankrum and Nicholas Erickson

Adviser: Junjian Qi

Sponsor: Richard Maguire

This project seeks to conduct a study to interconnect a 180 MW data center into the electric transmission system of Oahu, Hawaii. The standards developed by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation and Western Electricity Coordinating Council are used as design and analysis criteria for this project. This study includes both power flow and transient analysis of the transmission system to identify and mitigate any performance issues created by the interconnection.

Team Members: Tyler Loecker, Isaac Sousa, Sawyer Theis, Max Theis, Ben Sedlacek, Brady Hatkin, Jay Johnson and Michael Paulsen

Adviser: Jason Sternhagen

Sponsor: Nick Sternhagen

Autonomous roping dummy for practicing the sport of team roping without the need for live steers. The innovation allows for a person to practice by themselves.

Team Members: Dayton Downing, Braxton Hahn, Connor Matthies and Ryan Risacher

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: South Dakota Space Grant Consortium

An industry competitive, U.S.-made, NDAA-compliant drone with AI capabilities. The EAGLE-01 drone uses a compact design that combines precise electric flight control with high power and the energy density of battery power, integrating U.S.-sourced components for reliability, autonomy and scalability.

Team Members: Caleb McGregor and Logan Richert

Adviser: Lyle Mangen

Sponsor: Settje Agri-Services and Engineering

This dairy project in Volga includes new calf and free stall heifer housing, a solids separation building and a manure management system designed for future expansion, including a 1,000-head free stall barn. The design prioritizes constructability, balanced earthwork to reduce hauling costs and a flume-reception system sized for growth. Completed deliverables include the state CAFO permit, full construction documents and a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan. Remaining work focuses on construction support. Settje Agri-Services and Engineering provided survey data, grading plans, stormwater systems and a forward-looking manure system. Key risks include expansion sitting, legacy data accuracy and precise quantity takeoffs.

Team Members: Nguyen Nguyen, Dean English, Jace Christopherson and Isaac Mittan

Adviser: Ken Gamradt

Sponsor: Jun Huang

Developing a system where MentorPi cars can communicate together via the master car (platooning) and collaboratively train target recognition models using federated learning principles.

Team Members: Leo Ostigaard, Draix Wyatt, Jevic Kapuku and Masumbuko Alulea

Adviser: Ken Gamradt

Sponsor: Peace Lutheran

This project focuses on developing a user-friendly, secure and performant human resources task tracking web application for Peace Lutheran Church. It will assist the human resource department in managing employees, completing tasks and adhering to regulatory requirements.

Team Members: Dakota Woertink, Logan Jenc, Oliver Smith, Travis Townsend and Wyatt Roller

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: Jerry Natzel

A remote-controlled universal tool carrier designed with modular, independently rotating legs that allow both standard and crab drive movement for enhanced maneuverability. Interchangeable tool attachments make the platform adaptable for many tasks. Future development will incorporate autonomous features to enable hands-off operation.

Team Member: Hayden Eischens, Emily Casper and Kable Morrill

Adviser: Ken Gamradt

Sponsor: Ken Gamradt

This project consists of a small, playable demonstration of a video game. The video game is developed using skills gained in both CSC 450 (Game Programming I) and the formerly offered CSC 452 (Game Programming II). The project fits the genre of a 2D platformer, combining elements of original art and animation, precision movement and platforming, a cohesive story experience and enemy combat.

Team Member: Patrick Schultz, Jason Albertson, Kyle Schoon, Derek Venhuizen and Nicholas Frank

Adviser: Elina Efthymiou

Sponsor: Albertson Engineering Inc.

The project focuses on the structural design for the Bennett County Hospital extension in Martin. The hospital provides vital healthcare to a 90-mile-radius area. The proposed addition will provide 15 patient rooms, specialized storage spaces and an emergency response area. Our team evaluated multiple alternative designs considering cost, constructibility and aesthetics. Using relevant building codes, we a) determined the applied loads, b) designed the gravity and lateral load resisting systems and c) created structural models in Revit and RISA. Design work includes the design of steel framing, reinforced concrete foundation, metal deck diaphragm attachment and lateral braces.

Team Members: Andra Sherman, Caroline Reyner, Carter Juntilla and Purvi Jain

Adviser: Stephen Gent

Sponsor: Meghan Lorenz

The wheelchair transfer arm is a device that will replace the armrest on manual wheelchairs. This product will fully compact to the size of the armrest when concealed. The arm will fold out to provide additional support for users with limited mobility during pivot transfers to and from their wheelchair.

Team Members: Quintin Steindl, Michael Jackley, Shane Stone, Holden Peterson and Coleman Haiar

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: NASA

The RANGER project is a dual senior design project involving separate drone and arm teams that work in unison. The drone team designed, built and tested the drone and aviation components. Designed to operate with or without the robotic arm attached the drone has both surveying and heavy lift capabilities. With a flight time of 30 minutes due to advanced battery technology, the RANGER drone meets and exceeds industry standards.

Team Members: Connor Thelen, Jason Bartlett, Isaac Bjorklund and Max Einck

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: NASA

The RANGER arm has developed a 5-DOF robotic arm, equipped with a Nvidia Jetson Processor, Intel RealSense camera and modular end effectors. Partnering with the RANGER drone team, this system provides an autonomous solution for aerial manipulation when mounted to the RANGER drone. Powered by Meta’s DINOv3, the artificial intelligence vision system allows for real-time object detection and decision-making. This allows the arm to identify, react and complete tasks autonomously with precision.

Team Members: Brady Jaunich, Nick Teal and Cormick Logue

Adviser: Byron Garry

Sponsor: None

Our automatic scoring cornhole system uses RFID technology to track every bag the moment it hits the board. Each bag contains embedded RFID tags, and antennas mounted beneath the board detect whether a bag lands on the surface, goes through the hole or misses entirely. A Raspberry Pi processes these readings in real time, identifies which team each bag belongs to and applies standard cancellation scoring with optional manual input. The result is a seamless, hands‑free scoring experience that enhances gameplay accuracy and makes cornhole more engaging for players and spectators alike with the use of interactive lighting and display.

Team Members: Samuel Buerck, Justin Henke, Nathan O'Brien and Noah Hemmesch

Adviser: Ken Gamradt

Sponsor: Kwanghee Won

A multiuser virtual reality system designed for power grid resilience research and education. The system allows multiple users to join the same VR environment where they can interact with each other in real time. A team leader manages the simulation through special controls, while other users participate as players. The platform includes synchronized simulation events, voice communication and interactive tools such as flying and a telescope. The main goal of the simulation is to visualize renewable energy systems by dynamically simulating solar panel and wind turbine power output based on environmental conditions like time of day and wind speed.

Team Members: Alex Ludens, Alethea Schrandt and Bo Johnson

Adviser: Michael Twedt

Sponsor: Alex Ludens

Focusing on the development of a 3D-printed, modular fixed-wing UAV with VTOL capability, with primary emphasis on achieving a successful and reliable takeoff. The scope of work centers on airframe design, additive manufacturing and propulsion integration to validate lift generation and basic flight readiness.

Team Members: Rian Solberg, Isaac Adam, Riley Haynes, Caden Jones and Blake Judson

Adviser: Suzette Burckhard

Sponsor: Branson Tolliver and Thad Roberts Sayre Associates

The purpose of this project was to design the layout of a drive-thru restaurant on a 1-acre lot in the Lake Lorraine Development in Sioux Falls. Several alternative layout configurations were developed and evaluated based on parking, accessibility, queuing and traffic/pedestrian flow, with all layouts following the City of Sioux Falls ordinances. The final layout demonstrates a practical solution that balances all criteria and effectively uses the available space.

Team Members: Tyler Iverson, Addison Walz, Anthony Perales, Will Zavesky and Wyatt Reece

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: NASA

Our project focuses on designing a pressurized tunnel transfer system for the lunar and Martian surface. This system allows astronauts to traverse between landers, rovers and habitats without entering the outside environment removing the need for spacesuits. The projects including designing a conceptual solution to meet real-life mission needs in the later phases of the Artemis campaign, as well as a scaled down prototype to showcase the articulation methods, control software and tunnel structure.

Team Members: Hunter Palmer, Cade Howard and Miguel Gonzalez

Adviser: Ken Gamradt

Sponsor: Ken Gamradt

Rouge Like video game inspired by wizards and kit building strategies.

Team Member: Caleb Heilman, Tanner Tomasek and Zachary Rodman

Adviser: Robert Miller

Sponsor: Department-based project

In-home automated indoor gardening system that automates seedling care through closed-loop irrigation, scheduled LED lighting and a touch-friendly GUI. This includes capacitive soil-moisture sensor feedback with an I2C ADC, which informs watering decisions via a pump and a mist network. System is built into a gardening cart with controller and display attached to side of the cart.

Team Members: Claire Mooney, Siri Vagle, Brady Johnson and Nathaniel Kleven

Adviser: Francis Ting

Sponsor: Kevin Marton

This project involves replacing two aged hydraulic structures in northeastern South Dakota. The work includes replacing a two-barrel reinforced concrete box culvert (north site) with a larger three-barrel culvert and replacing two corrugated metal pipes at the south site with three CMPs. The new structures will reduce flooding while mitigating environmental, erosion and settlement risks. The proposed design will include armoring the inlets and outlets to reduce scour. HEC-RAS hydraulic modeling and bed shear stress calculations are conducted to evaluate the design.

Team Member: Matthew Wieberdink, Owen Diede, Christian Lee and Anders Olsen

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: Todd Letcher

This project introduces WINGMAN, an augmented reality maintenance assistant designed to support aircraft mechanics with hands-free access to technical maintenance manuals and references, as well as allowing for hands-free spoken maintenance reporting. WINGMAN combines AR glasses, natural language processing and an onboard computer vision system for displaying information, as well as taking photographs for maintenance records. The system is designed to integrate with existing digital maintenance manuals and electronic record systems, allowing for immediate product adoption without disrupting current maintenance regulations and practices.

Team Members: Tessa Trierweiler, Riley Hetzel, Paige Oswald and Carter LaMont

Adviser: Suzette Burckhard

Sponsor: Justin Bucher

Our team is proud to lead the site development for a landmark residential project in Aurora. By blending thoughtful aesthetics with rigorous engineering, we designed a master-planned neighborhood that features a new K-5 school and sustainable stormwater infrastructure. From initial conceptual layouts to the detailed engineering of Phase One grading and pipe networking, our work provides the framework for a development that will double the size of the Aurora community, providing high-quality housing and essential services for future generations.

Team Members: Brody Spies, Keegan Sigl and Ross Ritter

Adviser: Kyungnan Min

Sponsor: AE2S

Design a pump station and ground storage tank for the city of Mitchell's drinking water supply system to enhance the water pressure and residual disinfectant concentration. We evaluated alternatives and designed the ground storage tank, pump station and chemical feed system complying with city, state and federal standards.

Adviser: Janet Merriman

Sponsor: Ryan Companies, Puetz Design + Build, Van Buskirk Construction, Henry Carlson Construction, McGough, Journey Construction, DCI Group, Lloyd Construction

Ryan Companies is seeking a general contractor for the construction of the Southside Community Health Services building, a new 30,000 square foot medical clinic in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Student teams serving as general contractors submitted proposals and presented their qualifications and solutions to include company profiles, proposed management processes, detailed construction estimates and schedules, and safety and quality plans.

Team Members: Blayne Verhey, Gavin Cotter, Gavin Koch, Isaac Moravetz and Kolbie Osborn

Adviser: Rouzbeh Ghabchi

Sponsor: LG Everist

Our capstone project this semester focused on designing and producing an Ultra-High-Performance Concrete mix using locally available materials. The objective was to achieve a compressive strength of approximately 17,000 psi while maintaining a cost-efficient design. A key challenge in UHPC is the high cost of critical components such as silica powder, high-range water reducer and steel fibers. To address this, we performed extensive mix design calculations, iteratively refined our proportions and improved laboratory efficiency. Through these efforts, we optimized the mixture to reduce unit cost while still meeting the targeted compressive strength and performance requirements.

Team Members: Alexis Smith, Noah Richardson, Meloray Linderer, John Worth and Teyla Hanson

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: South Dakota Space Grant

The SPARK crawler is an autonomous six-legged crawler that is equipped to repair minor corrosion on commercial and cargo aircraft. The SPARK crawler works in tandem with a market drone, using image from the drone to scan and identify corrosion spots on the aircraft, then uses image-based AI to autonomously repair corrosion on the aircraft. The SPARK crawler is one of three �ձ�av��Ƶ finalist in the NASA Gateways to Blue Skies Competition.

Team Members: Noah Richardson, Evan Lauters, Nicholas Joy, Aiden DeWit, Noah Larson and Parker Thorsland

Adviser: Todd Letcher

Sponsor: South Dakota Space Grant

Built a remote control rover for a NASA competition. It was taken to Huntsville, Alabama, to compete against 18 other university RC teams. Competed on an obstacle course that had 10 different obstacles and three different tasks.

Team Members: Turner Marr, Austin Guenther and Law Reh

Adviser: Jeffrey Doom

Sponsor: Aerospace Club

The Aerospace Club at �ձ�av��Ƶ is competing in the International Rocket Engineering Competition, where teams aim to reach a target altitude of 10,000 feet. Our senior design team developed a dynamically controlled airbrake system that slows the rocket during ascent. The system uses four sliding plates to increase drag. A servo-driven linkage deploys the plates while an onboard flight controller uses real-time altitude and velocity data to adjust deployment. This allows the rocket to regulate ascent and reduce altitude by up to 1,000 feet, improving the ability to reach the target more precisely.

Team Members: Alex Foley, Andrew Gustad, Reed Toelle, Alex Sorensen and Kobi Lutjens

Adviser: Zach Gutzmer

Sponsor: AISC, ASCE

A pedestrian bridge over the Rio Grande River is being considered to better connect communities bordering the river north of El Paso, Texas. The crossing must have the ability to support the weight of pedestrians and maintenance/emergency vehicles that occasionally need to cross it. It is requested that the bridge be designed of steel because of its design versatility, ease of prefabrication, ability to rapidly erect, superior strength-to-weight ratio, durability, use of 90% recycled material on average and the steel industry’s commitment to sustainability. Our company is tasked with submitting a 1:10 scale model to match the needs of the client.