Engineering seniors showcase capstones in collaboration with industry clients

More than 135 graduating Liberty University School of Engineering (LUSE) students presented their senior design projects during Friday’s Engineering Capstone Expo in the Montview Student Union, Alumni Ballroom. Capstone is the culminating academic experience for engineering students and a significant résumé-enriching achievement as they prepare to transition to professional careers.

This year, LUSE offered 29 capstone projects for residential and online students, sponsored by 14 industry partners, including Framatome, BWXT, NAVAIR (U.S. Navy’s Fleet Readiness Center East), and more. (See full list below).

“At Liberty, we recruit real-world projects that students wouldn’t normally get practice on from their classroom projects and their coursework,” said Dr. Howie Fang, chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department. “This is something that really makes capstone a different experience from all the other universities and academic learning spheres.”

Many students go on to secure jobs with their capstone client companies. Fang noted companies such as BWXT, NAVAIR, Framatome, and Delta Star have hired Liberty graduates.

Winners were chosen at the annual expo, and seniors Darren Johnson, Seth McCready, Tyler Hill, and Ryan Breeding, who partnered with Framatome to develop a scaled educational model of a Sodium Fast Reactor’s Fuel Handling Machine, received one of the 2025 Excellent Capstone Project awards (see full list of winners below). 

Johnson, who is studying mechanical engineering, said the experience required him to branch out in his knowledge of electrical and computer engineering.

“It’s been a very challenging capstone, a lot of moving parts, a lot of intricacies; there’s been a lot of software and electrical, so getting to learn more about that side was really beneficial,” he said. “I’ve become a more well-rounded engineer, and I was able to show off some of my own design skills.”

Johnson added that the model is a smaller version of a “massive system,” and Framatome specifically required that every part of the system must function, despite its scaled dimensions.

Mechanical engineering student Jonathan Estes and teammates Reid McDuff, Ethan Mylin, Daniel Smith, and Kyle Thrush were sponsored by McKee Foods, the company behind popular snack products such as Little Debbie, to create a turnaround conveyer that prioritizes precise row order. In the factory, many times when the packages of food would drop from one conveyer to another, the rows would become scattered and unfit for packaging.

“Our solution was a retracting platform that loads the rows of product onto the platform,” Estes said. “The platform retracts, realigns the products, and drops the products about 3 inches onto the next conveyer and moves along into the process. In doing that, it’s able to not only keep the row integrity from being misaligned but also help realign some of the rows.”

Estes said he was able to directly apply his classroom training to the project.

“Capstone challenges you to use all the concepts you’ve built up (from freshman to senior year classes) into a practical business setting,” he said. “To apply those, it really gives you a big hands-on experience in translating the wealth of knowledge you’ve spent four years developing into actual products and real-world scenarios.”

While there were many mechanical and electrical engineering projects on display, some students participated in process engineering projects, including industrial and systems engineering student Katherine Craig and her peers Camden Etter, David Owen, and Robin Payton, who worked closely with Centra Health to improve the wait time process at Lynchburg General Hospital and decrease length-of-stay.

“We found opportunities to decrease length-of -stay by two to three hours,” she said.

One of their biggest findings was made by simulating a holding area for patients who were done with their treatment in the emergency department but waiting on a bed to open up in the hospital. Typically, these patients would have to wait in the emergency department, and this would back up the process of treating other patients who needed critical care. A holding area would free up room in the emergency department and decrease patient length-of-stay by 83 minutes.

“I love process engineering, and that’s what this is,” Craig said. “Using the simulation to find opportunities for improvement and working with a client was super helpful in understanding what it’s going to be like out in the real world.”

As part of their research, the team reviewed Centra’s data and shadowed hospital staff.

For seniors, the expo is a perfect opportunity for students to highlight their hard work and show how they succeeded at accomplishing their client’s requests.

“Capstone fuels the pathway for students to get full-time jobs with our clients,” Fang said. “From this, they will get a feel for what it takes to do well when they join the industry workforce.”

2025 Excellent Capstone Project awards

Civil Engineering Teams

Project: Hydaway Lake RV Park

Sponsor: LU Facility and Management

Joel Harkness, Matthew Holzapfel, Isaiah Schulties, Graham Baker, Stelwin Brown

Industrial and Systems Engineering Teams

Project: TSV Truck Line Simulation

Sponsor: Textron Specialized Vehicles

Noah Norton, Sammy Pak, Zaquon Ivory, Evan Eads

Mechanical/Electrical/Computer Engineering Teams

Project: Swimming Power Training Device

Sponsor: LU Club Sports

Lauren Musser (ME), William Rhodenizer (ME), Tyler Suchyj (EE), Joyce Berdkan (CE), Jonathan Bost (CE)

Project: ML Classification of Structural Dynamics

Sponsor: Framatome

Aaron Ronaldson (ME), Caleb Miller (ME), Caleb Deller (CE), Nathaniel Miller (EE), Titus Brenning (ME)

Project: Modular Maintenance Panel Design

Sponsor: NAVAIR

Amber Lynch (ME), Brendan Riding (ME), Corbin Burnley (ME), Jacob Dyba (ME), Joseph Krahn (ME), Manuel Figueroa Gomez (ME)

Project: Framatome Fuel Handling Machine

Sponsor: Framatome

Darren Johnson (ME), Seth McCready (ME), Tyler Hill (CE), Ryan Breeding (ME)

2025 Sponsors

Abbott

BWXT Inc.

Centra Health

Corvid Technologies LLC

Delta Star Inc.

Framatome

Haines Gipson and Associates (HGA)

Jamerson-Lewis Construction

Kapstone Projects LLC

LinkKits LLC

Master Engineers & Designers

McKee Foods Corporation

NAVAIR

Textron Specialized Vehicles