April 17, 2025
By Alba Garcia-Sarabia

Get to know mechanical engineering Capstone Design team, Toothpick Lovers!, and learn how they are developing a project to automate the toothpick flag assembly process for FlagCo for the Spring 2025 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, Toothpick Lovers!, consists of six mechanical engineering majors who will all graduate this May. Two members will continue their studies in graduate school, and the rest will enter the workforce. 

Team members include:

• Brooks Baro – Peachtree City, Georgia
• Declan Campbell – Roswell, Georgia
• Brian Gelinas – Nashua, New Hampshire
• Ryan Hockstein – Atlanta, Georgia
• Ian Ihrig – Atlanta, Georgia
• Dhruva Kothari – Annapolis, Maryland

Our team is working on a project that involves automating the toothpick flag assembly process. The process is currently done by hand and our goal is to automate it, starting with a pile of toothpicks, a stack of flags, and a reservoir of glue and ending with a quality toothpick flag. The goal is to match FlagCo's current production rate while increasing quality and offloading menial tasks from FlagCo employees.

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 team has used a very prototype-heavy design strategy. We started basic prototyping very early, mainly using 3D printing and laser cutting. We did a lot of testing where we simulated automated processes by hand to prove concepts and decide on designs. The most significant challenges we faced had to do with the small and delicate materials we were working with. The toothpicks have a diameter of under 2mm, and the flags' flexible nature makes them challenging to work with.

Regarding separating tasks, we mainly divided up the subsystems with two people working on each. However, when one person was overloaded with a difficult subsystem, other group members stepped up to help them. The flag dispensing subsystem has proven to be the most difficult due to the sticky nature of the flags. Consistently pulling one flag at a time has been challenging. However, creative solutions, such as utilizing air suction, approach the problem in a new light and have seen much success.

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

The biggest highlights have been any time we experience a small victory. Some examples include the first time we successfully dispensed a toothpick or the first time we automatically folded a flag around a toothpick. Overall, our prototyping sessions have been great, as we get along really well as a team.

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

Working with FlagCo has been great! Christian Garrity has been a fantastic person to work with, providing advice along the way. What has been especially helpful is Christian's guidance, which he learned from previous capstone teams, and from that, how to be as successful as possible.

5. What team attributes have contributed the most to your success?

The biggest thing contributing to our success is the time we put into our project. We prototyped three times weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. This allowed us to test and iterate our prototypes constantly. Keeping an open mind has also been incredibly important, as we didn't want to get fixated on one design.

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

If we could go back to day one, I think we'd tell ourselves to expect the unexpected when working with small, delicate components. Each of our subsystems has evolved into very different designs resulting from our early prototypes. It wasn't until we got our hands on the prototype that we could truly understand the part's behavior, which really speaks to the power of rapid prototyping. That said, we're proud of how our team has adapted and supported each other throughout the semester. Although we met many challenges, those lessons came with some pretty rewarding wins.

The Spring 2025 Georgia Tech Capstone Design Expo will be held on Tuesday, April 22, at McCamish Pavilion on the Georgia Tech campus. At the Expo, over 1,300 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.

Companies, entrepreneurs, and organizations interested in sponsoring projects in the Capstone Design class can contact Amit Jariwala. For more information on what projects are a good fit for the course, please review this brief YouTube video.