News archives 2010-2021

Center ICE funds four undergraduate teams

June 4, 2021

University Relations

This spring, the Center ICE Seed Fund supported four undergraduate senior design projects. Three of these projects came from the UAF mechanical engineering program while one was focused on civil engineering. The students were supported to develop their engineering solutions to the initial research questions. At the end of the semester, they presented their final solutions to their senior design class and provided thoughts and recommendations on next steps. More on the teams below:


  • The FAAST team of Joshua MacEachern, Louis Bastille and Zion Alioto focused on a fully automated aerial systems tether for unmanned aircraft systems. Their design centered on a lightweight delivery mechanism to support integration into a small UAS aircraft.

  • The Hot Pocket unmanned aerial vehicle enclosure team consisted of Emory Mildon, Adam Guerra and Matthias McIver. They worked on developing a design for an insulated enclosure for UAVs' for use in rural locations around Alaska that provided ease of use and the ability to operate in a range of environmental conditions.

  • The Adventure Board Team focused on how to provide a lightweight, compact and reliable safety technology to first responders or medical personnel working or exploring in backcountry situations. Team members Josiah Alberts, Connor Owen and Abigail Leigh worked to build out a solution to provide rigid spinal immobilization in emergency situations with a device that can also easily be tucked into a backpack when not in use.

  • The Arctic Connections Engineering Team of Russell Buckholz, Jason Gresehover, Michaela Jackson, Uziel Perez and Cate Whiting focused on building a solution for Dynamic Arctic Wastewater lines that can accommodate movement resulting from settlement and subsidence. Their design aimed to adapt to differential settlement , offer a lower life cycle cost and a modified maintenance schedule.


The Center ICE Seed Fund that supported these undergraduate senior design projects is itself supported through a grant from the Office of Naval Research. For more information on these projects please contact Peter Webley at pwwebley@alaska.edu.