Engineering design course takes aim at spotted lanternflies

How many ways are there to harass, catch or kill invasive spotted lanternflies?

The answer is undetermined, but if you were walking through Duffield Hall Atrium on the Cornell campus on the morning of April 28 you would have seen an impressive array of proposed technological solutions to the challenge of protecting New York state's vineyards from the destructive insect.

Nearly 200 Cornell engineering students were presenting handheld scrapers for insect egg masses, automated vineyard net-lifting systems, and even early-stage mechanical sorters designed to separate lanternflies from harvested grapes.

The student-created projects were the result of a chance encounter in the fall of 2025 between Steve Heim and Kyle Bekelja. Heim, a senior research associate and lecturer, was preparing to teach MAE 2250, which is a required sophomore design class in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Bekelja, the Grape Coordinator for Cornell Integrated Pest Management in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, was in search of an engineering team to work on spotted lanternflies.

Heim attended a talk given by Bekelja at Cornell's annual Insectapalooza festival, where Bekelja highlighted the issue of spotted lanternflies contaminating grape harvesting bins, noting that he believed it was an "engineering problem." After the talk, the two chatted and quickly realized that their interests might overlap in a way that could create a promising collaboration.

Heim was thinking about how to redesign MAE 2250, which he was teaching for the first time. While in previous years students pursued self-directed "open design projects," Heim wanted to bring in a community partner as a client with a real problem to solve.

"This is a class about learning how to think like an engineer," Heim said. "The goal is not to jump to solutions, but to deeply understand the problem first - what is the actual pain point - and then iterate toward a solution."

To address that, Heim introduced a unifying theme - and a real client. The result was a cross-college effort linking engineering students with researchers and stakeholders from agriculture, including vineyard operators and grape industry representatives from Canandaigua Winery and the National Grape Co-operative Association.

"I can't promise that every solution will be perfect," Heim told collaborators at the outset. "But I can guarantee that we'll expose the entire Sibley School cohort to agricultural problems, and that's valuable in itself."

"Steve's timing couldn't have been better," Bekelja said. "I was literally getting ready to contact some engineers when his email came in. "We've really needed some new perspectives on this problem, so I was thrilled. The range of ideas the students explored was impressive, and I think their work will help point us toward a viable solution in the long run."

Students were organized into 40 teams of five and tasked with identifying specific sub-problems related to the spotted lanternfly. Rather than being handed a predefined challenge, they were required to investigate the issue, consult with experts, and define their own engineering targets.

That process culminated in a series of structured milestones: a client-focused proposal, followed by three rounds of prototype development.

The first prototype emphasized rapid, low-cost physical modeling, often using cardboard or simple materials. The second focused on refining the core mechanical concept. The final iterations, which were presented at the showcase, integrated full systems and included experimental validation. Each team was also required to define three success criteria, along with the experiments that would be used to evaluate them.

"It's not a linear process where you come up with a solution, build it and test it," Heim said. "You have to iterate constantly - test early, learn from that and feed it back into your design." Sibley School staff members David Hartino, Alana Homa and Vincent Chicone, along with a team of 24 TAs, contributed much to the success of the class, ensuring things ran smoothly and that the almost-200 students had the tools and support they needed to go through the iterative process.

Some of the tools the teams needed were available in the recently upgraded Autodesk Design and Make Space, where students receive training in the safe operation of state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment under the direction of Chicone and his staff. Tim Case, Autodesk's senior customer success manager for education, was on hand to attend the exhibition and tour the space. Case came away impressed by the quality and variety of the projects students created.

A particularly difficult engineering problem

The spotted lanternfly presents a particularly difficult engineering problem. The insect damages plants by feeding on sap and leaving behind a sugary residue that fosters mold growth, harming crops such as grapes and apples.

Its life cycle further complicates testing. While egg masses and juvenile stages are present in the spring, the insects reach full maturity later in the summer, after the semester ends.

"That was one of the biggest challenges for students," Heim said. "How do you validate your design when you can't fully test it in the field yet? They had to think creatively about proxies and experimental methods."

Despite those constraints, the range of student solutions was broad. Some teams focused on tools for removing egg masses from trees and structures. Others explored large-scale agricultural interventions, including modifications to harvesting systems or protective coverings for vines.

Importantly, Heim emphasized that not every project needed to succeed to be valuable.

"If you can clearly show why something doesn't work because maybe it's too expensive or it doesn't scale, that's still a successful engineering outcome," he said. "Every idea is a good idea, until you try to execute it. The best teams know how to fail fast, and design and iterate their early prototypes accordingly."

The course reflects a broader push toward experiential learning and industry engagement at Cornell Duffield Engineering. Experts from across the university and the agricultural sector provided feedback throughout the semester, reviewing student proposals and offering guidance.

Some of these same experts were on hand to judge the student projects. There were Duffield Engineering faculty members, a representative from Rev: Ithaca Startup Works, a senior distinguished architect from Autodesk, a research and evidence synthesis librarian, two representatives of Cornell's Integrated Pest Management program and a viticulture specialist from Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Judges awarded one prize in each of two categories: mechanical design and problem/solution scoping. A third prize was given to the highest vote-getter in the people's choice category.

The three winning projects were:

Mechanical design: P.R.F.M.S. - A cyclone-based vacuum system to suck spotted lanternflies off plants during harvesting.
Problem/solution scoping: Save the Grapes - A decoy grapevine to attract spotted lanternflies away from the actual grapevines.
People's choice: Big Red Stompers - A handheld stomper that crushes and disposes of spotted lanternfly egg masses.

Sophomore Joaquín E. Pérez was the team lead for the Big Red Stompers group and some of the lessons he took away from the class had as much to do with leadership and teamwork as with spotted lanternflies and technology.

"Working on a semester-long group project taught me the importance of consistency and communication in team settings," Pérez said. "It reinforced my idea that clear expectations and regular check-ins are essential to keep everyone motivated. By establishing a shared vision, you ensure everyone on the team understands the value they contribute towards the final deliverable."

How engineering actually works

Jennifer Phillips Russo drove all the way from Portland, New York, where she leads the Lake Erie Regional Grape Program, so she could see the projects and judge in the problem/solution scoping category.

"Seeing the wide range of ideas the student teams developed was especially meaningful because this is not a hypothetical issue," Phillips Russo said. "It is a real problem grape producers are facing right now. Growers are dealing with major economic pressures, shifting markets, labor shortages, disease pressure and increasing uncertainty about the future of the industry. The students' solutions showed not only imagination, but also a willingness to engage with complex agricultural problems in thoughtful and practical ways."

Looking ahead, Heim hopes to extend the most promising ideas beyond the classroom.

"One of the next steps would be to take a handful of these projects and continue them over the summer, field testing them directly with our community partners," he said. Two of those community partners are Canandaigua Winery and National Grape - which owns Welch's - and they have been very supportive of Heim's students in their efforts to address a problem faced by all grape growers in the Northeast.

The showcase offers a snapshot of what happens when hundreds of students tackle a real-world problem simultaneously - an approach Heim likens to an early-stage innovation pipeline.

"If this were a company, you wouldn't put all your resources into one idea," he said. "You'd explore many possibilities, test them and then decide which ones are worth pursuing further."

That mindset, he said, is exactly what the course is designed to instill.

"This is about learning how engineering actually works: it's not about finding the one correct solution," Heim said. "You have to want to get your hands dirty, to look for ways to fail fast and use that to iterate your design. And that is exactly what happened. I'm really proud of what the students achieved."