When companies need to stay competitive, they turn to University of Rhode Island engineering students.

Over the years, students have helped more than a dozen companies through yearlong capstone design projects. The projects provide companies an extra boost in R&D and students real-world experience.

Toray Plastics has rolled out student inventions at its North Kingstown, R.I. plant, helping the company stay competitive and keep jobs in the Ocean State.

“We’re not just giving a project for student enjoyment, but we are giving a project which we need,” Senior Vice President of Engineering Shigeru Osada says.

Osada says that students bring a fresh set of eyes to problems. Students can also spend time gathering data and testing concepts – time that plant engineers lack.

Elsewhere, nursing Professor Patricia Burbank turned to a group of biomedical engineering students to build a prototype of a device that encourages senior citizens to exercise. The team completed a prototype and the accompanying research paper won an award at the Northeast Bioengineering Conference.

Plus, the project helped team member Harold Greene (’12) secure a job.
During job interviews, he leaned heavily on his capstone project, which he had begun as part of an internship under biomedical engineering Professor Ying Sun.

“If I hadn’t had the project I would have sounded more like a cookie-cutter fresh graduate,” Greene says.

Today, Greene works for Electro Standards Laboratories in Cranston, R.I. He turned down other offers and admission to a doctoral program.

It’s no surprise Greene is in demand. Neptune-Benson CEO Barry Gertz says students with capstone design experience gain characteristics employers crave.

“The components of the project – the organizational thought, the design criteria, troubleshooting, testing – all of the aspects to take something from concept to completion are certainly an asset for a job candidate,” Gertz says.