The future was on display at Tandon’s 2025 Capstone Competition

Part science and engineering fair, part pitch competition and career launchpad, the annual Capstone Competition highlights innovative design projects from across NYU Tandon every spring.

As the culminating experience of an engineering student’s education, the Capstone Project represents a final gauntlet of sorts. It melds years of coursework, technical skills, and analytical thinking into a single, ambitious project, demonstrating what it means to be an engineer not just in theory and name, but in practice.

This year, 26 student-led teams participated, representing the Departments of Technology Management and Innovation, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Civil and Urban Engineering, and others.

The event transformed the Makerspace into a vibrant exhibition hall, with more than 200 faculty members, peers, and guests wandering from table to table, engaging with these student teams as they shared the results of months of iterative designing, building, and testing. Just as compelling as the final prototypes were the stories behind each project: narratives of challenges faced, skills sharpened, and evolving perspectives that simultaneously shaped the work and the student engineers conducting it.

Semi-finalists

Six teams were selected to deliver 10-minute pitches to a panel of industry professionals who volunteered to judge the event, with winners receiving cash prizes generously provided by Vice Dean for Research Linda Ng Boyle and the Institute for Invention, Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

They included:

NeuroAlert (Nalyan Varela, Nishat Haque, Shahd Aldaaysi)

A wearable device designed to help individuals manage anxiety attacks by providing early warnings, tracking vital signs like heart rate, and identifying recurring triggers.

Grace: Your Private Driving Assistant  (Jihan Song)

An AI-powered platform that turns dash-cam and smartphone data into a personalized driving tutor for beginners, eventually becoming a long-term safety assistant to improve driver education and reduce accidents.

Florise: Bloom with Purpose (Soohyeuk Choi, Eunsoo Cho, and Hoon Cho)

A career discovery app for young adults navigating gap years or uncertainty. Through gamified daily missions and AI-driven suggestions, Florise fosters self-exploration and motivation during transitional life phases.

Soft Pneumatic Robot for Pediatric Spinal Column Rehabilitation  (Shashwat Sharma)

A soft robotic device designed to aid children with spinal conditions. Using origami-inspired, vacuum-driven actuators, it supports safer and more adaptive physical therapy sessions in both clinical and home settings.

Ganga (Anuj Yadav)

A sustainable solution to ritual pollution at the Ganga River, the biodegradable Bhishma urn filters cremation ash before it enters the body of water, respecting spiritual traditions while protecting ecological health.

Happy Feet (Anna Giunto, Aadhav Sivakumar, Elle Edwards, Gabrielle Heraux, and Emily Spitzer)
An affordable, sensor-embedded insole that monitors foot pressure and biomechanical movement in real time.

The judges

A panel of judges posed tough and insightful questions that pushed teams to defend their choices and articulate the full scope of their work, from technical feasibility and user need to market fit and longer-term vision. This year’s judges were:

David G. Lefer, Industry Associate Professor, NYU Tandon

Julian Boxenbaum, Co-Founder and Executive Producer, LucidNYC

Frank Vallese, Managing Director, Partnerships for Research

Keith Mauppa, Program Manager, NYU Entrepreneurial Institute

Andrew Silverman, Founder, Ace Angel Ventures LLC

The Winners

The Highest Entrepreneurial Potential Award was presented to NeuroAlert, recognized as the team most poised to convert their idea into a successful startup venture.

The Greatest Societal Impact Award went to Team Ganga for identifying and addressing the most compelling real-world challenge with a thoughtful balance of cultural and religious sensitivity alongside environmental awareness.

In an unprecedented decision, the Best Overall Design Award was jointly awarded to Team Happy Feet and the Soft Pneumatic Robot for Pediatric Spinal Column Rehabilitation. Both teams delivered exceptionally well-engineered solutions that exemplified excellence in their design and execution, from concept to prototype.

The Students’ Choice Award put the power into the hands of the Tandon community. In a closely contested vote, an Autonomous Mobile Drawing Robot created by Kunal Runwal, Omkar Ankalkope, and Daniel Adejumo emerged as the favorite.

A curriculum engineered for real-world impact

The high quality of this year’s Capstone Projects not only reflects the talented student body at Tandon, but the evolution of its human-centered engineering curriculum, with courses like EG-UY 3003: The Pre-Capstone Experience, preparing students to engage deeply with real-world challenges. Rooted in empathy, their classes require students to move beyond their own experiences and connect directly with people through interviews and conversations. These interactions help them understand the perspectives, lived experiences, and unmet needs that shape their design direction, ensuring their solutions remain grounded in actuality, rather than assumptions.

The Tandon Capstone Competition was made possible through the efforts of Professor Jin Kim Montclare, Jonathan Sun, and Pooja Shah at the Convergence of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Institute, in partnership with Molly Ritmiller and Elizabeth New of the Tandon MakerSpace.

By Jonathan Sun, Research Fellow at the Convergence of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute at Tandon