Hosted by the College of Engineering’s Meloy Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program, Aggies Invent brought together seven multidisciplinary student teams for a 48-hour competition to solve some of Sandia National Laboratories’ most pressing issues.
As government labs conduct groundbreaking research across the country, the need for national security has never been greater. Working in this vital field offers immense rewards, but recent technological advancements, the rise of remote work and an increase in Bluetooth-enabled personal devices have introduced new complexities that threaten the balance between efficiency and information security. Sandia National Laboratories presented these challenges to student teams, and Team DC Capture won first place by developing a solution that improves both efficiency and security, allowing lab employees to classify documents with less difficulty and more accuracy.
“To ensure the right people see the right documents, Sandia National Labs has a process for reviewing documents to make sure they are correctly classified. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find the appropriate people to review these documents, and the document review can be very tedious,” said Jadon Lee, a computer engineering student and Team DC Capture team member.
Aggies Invent has been an amazing experience to bring some of my skills out of the classroom and learn how to use them to actually solve a problem. With the provided mentors and opportunity to work with the Sandia employees, it was a massive learning experience for me as well.
DC Capture creatively tackles this challenge by using an intelligent flagging system, integrated file sharing and a smart queue system. Leveraging artificial intelligence, DC Capture flags potential classified information in submitted documents and then smartly assigns the documents to the most qualified and available reviewers, also known as derivative classifiers.
“With DC Capture, reviewers can more quickly review the document and reduce the risk of missing potential classification infractions,” Lee added.
DC Capture faced a tight schedule during the event, but they didn’t let it stop them from developing a prize-winning solution.
“We had to go through the entire design process and create a compelling pitch in under 48 hours. Some sleep may have been lost, but it was definitely worth it for the experience,” Lee said.
Through the Meloy Program’s partnerships with industry, Aggies Invent provides a unique environment that fosters constructive feedback and valuable connections, enabling students to refine their ideas with expert guidance from faculty and professionals.
“Aggies Invent has been an amazing experience to bring some of my skills out of the classroom and learn how to use them to actually solve a problem,” Lee said. “With the provided mentors and opportunity to work with the Sandia employees, it was a massive learning experience for me as well.
“My personal takeaway is to always keep the customer/problem in mind. I often had tunnel vision on the small technical details more than the main idea of Aggies Invent, which is the customer and problem. It's not really about how technically impressive your team's submission is, but more so about how well it addresses the customer's problem.”