If you ever wondered what a biomedical engineer’s education looks like, there is now tangible evidence on display in the U.A. Whitaker Biomedical Building. Two new, custom designed and built exhibit cases have been installed in the first floor lobby of the building, headquarters of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), spotlighting the innovative, award-winning work of students.

“The idea was to create something that showcased what the students are achieving in this department, because when you look around here, you really don’t get an idea of what a biomedical engineer BME person does,” says James Rains, design instructor and ddirector of the BME Capstone Design program. “So we came up with the idea of display cases in the lobby, something to represent our relevant contributions to solving healthcare problems, the really cool and exciting things our students are doing, and give them more recognition.”

BME design instructor Raja Schaar, who has an extensive background in creating exhibits for major museums across the Southeast (such as the Museum of Art and Design Atlanta and the Ocmulgee National Monument in Macon), took the lead in designing and building the displays, which will feature rotating examples of Capstone, InVenture, and other student projects.

“We’re highlighting their story,” says Schaar, while busily arranging sequential prototype iterations to showcase one student team’s project. Schaar, who was a lecturer in Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Industrial Design for more than eight years before moving over to BME, adds, “We push them to embrace the design process and they take things beyond what we teach them.”

A permanent piece in the exhibit space is an older model Coulter Counter that will feature the names of Capstone student design champions (think of Capstone or InVenture, for example) engraved on the side.

“It’s kind of like the Stanley Cup from the National Hockey League, but for BME. We’ll engrave the names of winning students from each semester. It’s their chance to be immortalized, so they can come back in 20 years and show their kids,” says Rains, who can’t do that with his own kids, even though he was a Georgia Tech Capstone champion in 1998.  

Rains was part of a team that developed a remote controlled ‘smart home,’ but actually won as part of the team that designed a self-feeding, one-handed soldering. The atmosphere surrounding student innovation and entrepreneurship has changed since then, Rains says. “We really encourage our students to follow through with their projects, to file for patent, or create their own start-up. There are now programs that allow the students a pathway for pursuing these ideas further, such as Startup Summer. It’s a different world now."