Engineering students show off at Design Days

Engineering students are showing off the fruits of their labor this week at the Union.

Design Days, held Thursday and today, takes place every fall and spring semester and gives students a chance to present projects they’ve been working on through the semester. Freshmen enrolled in Engineering 100 presented their ideas for a product that could be used in dorm rooms Thursday, said Erik Goodman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering.

“It’s pretty sweet,” civil engineering freshman Ron Eisma said. “I’ve never been to anything like this before. I’m proud of our invention.”

Eisma’s group invented the “Trash Masher” — a manual trash compactor.

The freshmen showed off their work to students from five middle schools, who then picked a winner, said Maureen Adams, the College of Engineering Design Days coordinator.

The winning project was the “Health Pod,” an electronic way for people to keep track of their nutritional intake, Adams said.

“We’re hoping to spark an interest in engineering,” Adams said. “We want to get them to think that going into a technical field isn’t nerdy.”

As of this semester, all incoming engineering freshmen are required to take EGR 100. About 450 students are enrolled.

“It’s hands-on technical work versus just the book smart thing,” Adams said. “Having that, they can see some realistic growth.”

Seniors will present their capstone projects today, which range from an automated trace gas trapping system to a solar-powered, Internet-enabled computer system for use in developing nations.

“For the seniors that are graduating, they get to show off things that they wouldn’t have believed they could do when they came in as freshmen,” Goodman said. “The atmosphere is very electric.”

High school students will be attending today to see the projects. Like the middle-schoolers, the hope is to spark an interest in engineering, Goodman said.

Many of the senior projects are sponsored by companies, such as General Motors Corp. and Dow Chemical Co.

Mechanical engineering has been holding Design Days for about 14 years. During this time, the department has been working to incorporate the entire college of engineering, Adams said.

It will run from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. today on the second, third and fourth floors of the Union.

“Design Day never looks the same twice,” Goodman said. “Students design all kinds of innovative things.”

Published on Thursday, December 4, 2008