Sindy Huang
Greg Holton, a resident of New Bern, inspects the collapsible bridge built by team Truss-worthy during First Year Engineering Design Day on Tuesday, November 21, 2017 in the McKimmon Center. Truss-worth ended up receiving the runner up place during the morning session of FEDD. Much of their project materials were donated, costing the team only $12 out of pocket to build the bridge.
NC State held its 18th annual First Year Engineering Design Day (FEDD) in McKimmon Center Tuesday to encourage educational competition and promote learning.
FEDD is a required event for Introduction to Engineering and Problem Solving (E 101), a compulsory class for all first-year engineering students at NC State.
“We are very excited to be participating in the 18th annual Freshman Engineering Design Day with the College of Engineering at NC State,” said Barbara Jasmine Adams, director of undergraduate academic advising for the Department of Computer Science and an instructor for a section of Introduction to Engineering and Problem Solving.
FEDD was heavily attended by students, faculty, alumni and corporate representatives, as well as parents and family.
“From day one FEDD projects allow our students to put together their technical skills, their communication skills and their teamwork skills to create a design project that allows them first-hand to hit the ground running and create an engineering project to experience what engineers do,” Adams said.
Students were responsible for designing their own projects from the start of the semester in assigned categories such as concrete canoe, bubble blowing machine and 3-D printing, in small teams. Students competed for first, second and third places as well as honorary mention in ceremonies held at morning and afternoon sessions. Winners received bragging rights and a FEDD T-shirt.
“Every first-year engineering student has a FEDD project, there’s a precision launcher, there’s music making, there’s 3-D printing, there’s a ton,” said Jordan Boerger, a third-year studying electrical and computer engineering who competed as part of the team Life’s a Beach in the 3-D printing competition
Team Life’s a Beach received first place in the 3-D printing competition during the morning session for their project designed for vacation trips to the beach, which included stakes to hold beach towels in place and cup holders, among other things made entirely of 3-D-printed material.
“This project, a little different rather than some of the other projects where they tell you what to make, this project you have to come up with an idea first, the whole point of the project is they say make a 3-D-printed object that serves two or more functions while you’re on vacation and so we kind of have to come up with an idea, so I really like how dynamic this is,” Boerger said.
Boerger also expressed optimism that their FEDD project could be implemented as a commercial product beyond just being a classroom assignment.
“At the start this was kind of just a FEDD project but we actually had a speaker in our E 101 class talk about entrepreneurship,” Boerger said. “This is immediately what we all thought of so this might actually turn into something further, we still have to do some research, everybody who’s come up has really liked it.”
Regardless of competitive outcome, students expressed gratitude for lessons learned throughout the course of the project.
“I think it’s an interesting way to introduce engineering to a large group of people,” said Aidan Beres, a second-year studying first-year engineering who competed in the bubble blowing machine competition. “It’s one of the most efficient ways they can do it, building the project was a good use of time and it’s pretty cool seeing all the new ideas.”