First-year engineering students showcased their semester-long design projects at the McKimmon Center in Monday, with awards being distributed at the end of both the morning and afternoon sessions. Freshman Engineering Design Day (FEDD) concludes the Introduction to Engineering and Problem Solving class, E101.
“FEDD is to get [engineering freshmen] started on engineering principles and thinking about that, as well as working in teams,” said Veronica Lavelle, a senior studying biomedical engineering and an engineering ambassador.
A 3-D printing category was new to this year’s projects, along with older categories such as arcade game, hovercraft, water fountain, toy design, music maker, bubble machine, animatronics and concrete canoe.
Gaven Kerr, a freshman studying computer science, was part of a second-place team that created a music maker that played “Silent Night” and “Jingle Bells.”
“Sometimes I like to do things on my own, so I’ve had to learn to work with other people,” Kerr said. “Also, time management was another thing this project has taught me, you can’t wait until the last minute.”
Another project was the “Skoozle,” a re-vamped gym scooter intended for a fun way for kids to learn spelling and basic math.
“It was really helpful to learn the design process,” said Caroline Alexander, one of the Skoozle’s creators and a freshman studying chemical engineering. “We were also able to test our product at a local elementary school to get feedback from both students and teachers, so that was also super helpful.”
Other creations included pinball machines, glasses that contain Bluetooth earbuds and a robotic Mr. Wuf.
Hailey Queen, coordinator of Engineering First Year programs spoke about the beginning of FEDD, as she one of the students to participate in the first year of the event.
“The idea originally was to give students a chance to collaborate early in their engineering program, because students start college and they’re taking all these GEPs, they’re not really doing much actual engineering work,” Queen said. “Some people have misconceptions about engineering, they don’t understand how much teamwork is involved. This project is really an opportunity for students to work in teams to solve problems and ultimately, that’s what engineering is.”
Asa Rogerson, a freshman studying engineering, tells Lori Sneed, whose son is also a first-year engineering student, about the use of a cheese grater in his group's concrete canoe design project. Rogerson explained that many of the materials his group used to make the canoes were household kitchen items, and the canoes performed successfully at Freshman Engineering Design Day in the McKimmon Center on Nov. 22.
