A team of biomedical engineering students recently took second place at the World Congress on Biomechanics in Dublin, Ireland for their work on a mechanical umbrella for power wheelchairs.

The umbrella design was created as part of a senior design project by Jessica Pieczynski, Gerardo Hernandez-Moreno, Tess Vessels, and Seth Patterson.

More than 150 abstracts were submitted to the competition, and the UAB team was one of only six to be chosen for the final competition in Dublin.

Pieczynski and Patterson represented the team at the Congress, along with BME faculty mentor Alan Eberhardt, Ph.D. "This team did an awesome job," said Eberhardt. "Jessica and Seth gave a very professional talk that emphasized both the engineering and business aspects of their device. They made me very proud."