DARTMOUTH – One-quarter of University of Massachusetts Dartmouth seniors in the mechanical-engineering program recently won the department’s thesis-project competition. They garnered the prize for most effective and useful design for their work on a high-temperature annealing oven used to create semiconductors for Fall River firm MicroMagnetics, a company specializing in magnetic sensing and imaging.

“What our team of students designed is already in use – delivering real products to real customers in real time,” said Matt Carter, MicroMagnetics vice president for manufacturing.

Carter, a 2003 UMD graduate who got his start with the company following an internship there, credited UMD seniors Alex Sinkevich, Brittany Cole, Ben Lawler and Eric O’Connell – known as “Team Honeybadger.”

The capstone projects are designed to provide students with real-world, work experience and to provide participating local employers with a skilled workforce.

Other projects centered on robots, wave-powered electricity generators and remote-operated submersibles. •