Smithsonian Magazine online published an article profiling the multitute of year-end engineering open houses this week which prominently featured the ChemSense project recently displayed at the Texas ECE Senior Design Open House. ChemSense was one of seven engineering projects highlighted by Smithsonian.com as looking "particularly promising for changing people’s lives."

ChemSense was the senior design project for Travis Brannen, John Elson, Steven Prickett, Kaarthik Rajendran, Aaron Treptow and Parker Wray who were advised by Prof. Ray Chen and involved creating a handheld laser spectrometer that can seek out airborne chemicals and pollutants in the mid-infrared spectrum, the wavelength region where those gases are best detected.

The ChemSense team took second place in the Senior Design contest among Honors projects.

Read "Made by College Seniors, These Seven Products Give Us a Glimpse Into the Future" on Smithsonian.com

View a video detailing the ChemSense project below: