Engineering students presented their capstone projects at the 2025 Engineering Capstone Fair.
Projects ranged from a Mars rover to truck tailgates, allowing students to present the projects they’ve spent the semester working on.
Most of the projects involved several engineering students, each with different emphases. To make the final project work, the members split up into teams to finish their respective assignments and make their product function.
Tyson Drake was part of the team working on a Mars rover. This project involved many different types of engineering, allowing for lots of collaboration.
“It's been a lot of fun to learn new things and work with different engineers,” Drake said.
Macy Ore is a manufacturing engineering major who worked on a drink cup vending machine that will soon be implemented in BYU’s Wilkinson Student Center.
They noticed that when ordering a drink at the Wilkinson Student Center, students had to order it with their meals. With this product, students now have the option to pay only for a cup from the vending machine.
After it is completed and the sponsors give their final approval, the finished product will be available in the Wilkinson Student Center.
“This is a finished product, rather than just a prototype," Ore said. "It's really cool to be able to see the whole process."
Unlike Ore’s drink cup vending machine, which was the first of its kind, some capstone presentations at the fair were created for the sole purpose of competing in competitions and have been passed down from different students over the years.
Ian Carey was on the engineering team working on a race car for BYU Racing.
Carey and his team took over the project from previous students and had the task of making changes to the car to make it eligible for racing.
The process of creating the car was surrounded by the purpose of meeting the competition requirements, which meant lots and lots of testing.
“It was really cool to see everything just progressing,” Carey said.
Drake and Josh Miller were on the team working on a Mars rover. Like the BYU Racing race car, this team competes in the summer against other colleges' Mars rovers.
The requirements for the rover change each year. This year, the rover had to type autonomously on a keyboard, presenting a new challenge for this year's group of students.
Teams presenting their capstone projects at the fair, such as those working on the drink cup vending machine, BYU race car, and Mars rover, faced setbacks while completing their projects.
These setbacks caused stress and uncertainty regarding their finished products and whether it would turn out like they initially envisioned.
“There was a point where we were like, 'oh, things aren't going the way we want, are we gonna actually be able to finish this?'” Ore said.
Despite these setbacks, the teams still found ways to solve the issues and present their products at the fair.
“Seeing the final products in the space, I think will be the real test and seeing how it actually works. So that'll be stressful but exciting,” Ore said.