The LAU School of Engineering (SOE) recognized and honored the students behind this year’s capstone projects at a ceremony held on May 31 at the Frem Civic Center on the Byblos campus.

In his welcoming remarks to students, faculty, staff and parents, Dean Michel Khoury described the event as a “testament to the young engineers’ commitment to excellence and relentless pursuit of knowledge.” He touched on their projects’ impact, noting how they embody the spirit of creativity, innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, which are all crucial skills in the engineering profession.

To that end, Dr. Khoury affirmed the school’s dedication to fostering the next generation of innovative engineers and leaders. “Our faculty are leaders in their respective fields, and they provide students with unique opportunities to learn,” he said.

Associate Dean Caesar Abi Shdid expressed the School of Engineering’s sincere gratitude to its donor and long-time friend and supporter, CEO of Dubai Contracting Company Abdallah Yabroudi, who donated the monetary prizes.

Dr. Abi Shdid then handed the Hassan Abdallah Yabroudi Innovation Award to the all-women computer engineering team: Hawraa Hellani, Malak Abou Hamdan, Marie-Rita El Zoghbi and Pia Kattoura for their project: Sound-Based Fire Extinguishing System for Electrical Rooms.

On behalf of the jury, Associate Professor of Computer Engineering Joe Tekli congratulated the winning students and expressed his utmost gratitude for their hard work and accomplishments. He announced the winning teams as follows:

The Hassan Abdallah Yabroudi Best Poster Award: Quad-Legged Autonomous Unmanned Navigator (QLAUN) by mechatronics engineering majors Mohamad Said Moudallal and Ralph Sakhat.

The Hassan Abdallah Yabroudi First Runner-Up Award: Augmented Operating Room, by mechatronics engineering majors Charbel Bou Maroun and George Daou.

The following teams also received honorable mentions for their projects:

• Simulation of CO2 Storage in Saline Aquifer and Depleted Gas Reservoir, by petroleum engineering majors Jana Shreiteh, Aya Jaafar and Zahrah Ghannam.
• Fuzzy Torque Vectoring for Stability Control, by electrical and computer engineering majors Jad Daou, Rayan Daou, Lynn Keshli and Elio Saade.
• Ultrasound Augmented Reality Based Assistant Kit, by electrical and computer engineering majors Lamis Armoush, Salim Mersally, Ahmad Sabsabi, and Roni Abi Hanna
• Soft Gripper for Direct and Safe Grasping, by mechanical engineering majors Rayya Bedran, Maroun Chahine, Ghady Zeghondy and Alessandro Yanco Kassab.

For first prize winners Moudallal and Sakhat, the experience opens doors for further research in legged robotics. Their project, QLAUN, is a quad-legged robot that hopes to fill the gaps in research on legged robots, where they are often faced with shortcomings.

“The main pillar behind QLAUN is to set a high standard for research in Lebanon and the region,” said Sakhat, explaining that their invention, which was created from scratch at the LAU labs, allows researchers to test their theories thanks to its modular design that can be customized depending on the objectives of the experiment.