April 10, 2024
By Ashley Ritchie

Get to know interdisciplinary Capstone Design team Team Supernova who is developing an automated packaging process for American Baitworks Co.'s soft plastic fishing lures for the Spring 2024 Georgia Tech Capstone Design Expo. The team's advisor is Professor Julie Linsey.
 

1. Can you tell us about your team and project?

Our team, Team Supernova, is working with American Baitworks Co., a company that produces soft plastic fishing lures for fresh and saltwater fishing. They have tasked us with automating the packaging process for their manufacturing line to remove a bottleneck in their process, as the current industry standard is hand packaging the lures.

Team members include:

• Abigail Jacobs, Mechanical Engineering – Marietta, Georgia
• James Muscatello, Mechanical Engineering – Laytonsville, Virginia
• Chelsea Pechenino, Mechanical Engineering and Business – Kennesaw, Georgia
• Gabriel Weese, Computer Engineering – St. George, Utah
• Jake Yarger, Mechanical Engineering – Waycross, Georgia
• Hiromi Yoshizaki, Electrical Engineering – Vienna, Virginia

2. What is your team’s design process, how do you go about separating different tasks, and what are some of the biggest challenges you have faced?

Our design process relied heavily on rapid prototyping to determine a final design that would meet our goals. We learned very quickly that the scope of this project was vast, and our greatest challenge was determining how to approach the problem space so we could feasibly meet our time constraints while delivering a final product that would meet both our advisor’s and our sponsor’s expectations. We first broke down the packaging process into manageable pieces and distributed the work between team members based on their strengths. Some members focused more on the electrical components of the system, while others focused on the physical fabrication and design of components and still others focused on the industrial, production line design. By splitting up the design process based on our strengths, we were able to deliver a complete production line design and working prototype (called SABER) for that line.

3. Have there been any highlights while working on your project?

One of the highlights of this project was getting to road trip to Ocean Springs, Mississippi to tour the American Baitworks Co. plant and learn about their manufacturing process. We had the unique opportunity to interview the people who are on the plant floor every day, gain their insight into the current process, and see what they envision for the future. Taking this trip at the beginning of our Capstone journey allowed our team to get closer and get to know each other outside of our project, which has made working together a lot more enjoyable.

4. Can you tell us about your experience working with a sponsor?

We were initially nervous about meeting the expectations of our sponsor, American Baitworks Co., with the scope of this project being large and the expectations high. We found that though our sponsor had high expectations, they offered a lot of support to make reaching those expectations doable. We have accomplished more on this project in one semester than we ever thought we could, and we are very thankful for the encouragement and guidance of our sponsor to keep us moving forward.

5. If you could go back in time, what advice or message would you give your team on day one?

The biggest advice we would give ourselves is to not get overwhelmed by the amount of work and timeline of this project. Once you break everything down to its base layers, you find small, manageable tasks that you can treat as a to do list to guide the rest of your process. The beginning of Capstone is a hectic sprint, but once things settle down, you will enjoy your time and your team more than you could have expected.

The Spring 2024 Georgia Tech Capstone Design Expo will be held on Tuesday, April 23, at McCamish Pavilion on the Georgia Tech campus. At the Expo, over 1200 seniors from various disciplines of engineering, sciences, public policy, and industrial design will showcase their innovative projects designed and built during their Senior/Capstone Design course. Register to attend here!

This semester's Expo includes over 70 industry sponsors. Their donations support Transforming Tomorrow: The Campaign for Georgia Tech.