The UNLV College of Engineering is hosting its biannual Senior Design Competition Wednesday, Dec. 6 from 2 to 4:30 p.m.

The longtime capstone event challenges soon-to-be UNLV Engineering graduates to get hands-on with their education and present commercially viable prototypes and community improvement ideas to a panel of industry judges. Teams who build the most commercially viable and sustainable projects will take home top prizes.

In addition to prizes and bragging rights, the competition prepares students to enter the workforce ready to solve challenging problems that impact the Las Vegas community, nation, and world.

Nearly 40 projects will be up for judging next week, and the innovations will be on display for the public and the UNLV campus community from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at Ham Hall and the UNLV Foundation Building Blasco Event Wing.

Here's just a sampling of the projects that will be on display:

Math Unity Game

Every summer, the UNLV College of Engineering engages young learners through a variety of STEM-focused summer camps in order to spark an interest in engineering and computer science. This student group has the same goal in mind with an interactive game to aid high schoolers in learning calculus. The team’s goal is to develop a game that makes students feel like they’re not learning math, and, as a result, encourage them to pursue STEAM degrees.

Augmented Reality Translator Visor

The wearable AR visor aims to consolidate real-time language translation, object recognition, and historical/contextual information into a single device —  upping the ante on convenience by  eliminating the need for users to carry multiple gadgets or use a hodgepodge of different apps. The visor offers “an immersive, hands-free solution that enhances language comprehension,” and makes it especially valuable for travelers, language learners, and those in diverse, multilingual environments. 

Advanced Transportation and Congestion Management Technologies Deployment

Between 2014 and 2018, an annual average of 27 accidents and over 90 citations were attributed to wrong-way crashes in Nevada, according to the Nevada Department of Transportation. One student project seeks to reduce the frequency of wrong-way drivers (WWDs) on the U.S. 95 freeway system from Summerlin Parkway to the Spaghetti Bowl through the placement of signage and detection technology along U.S. 95 exit ramps. According to the team’s proposal, the technology will alert WWDs of their error, giving them an opportunity to self-correct before entering the freeway system, with the goal of reducing traffic-related deaths, damages and delays caused by WWDs.