Senior engineering students in GVSU's Seymour and Esther Padnos College of Engineering and Computing will display their talents and expertise at the annual Engineering Design Conference on Friday, July 30 from 1 until 4 p.m. at the Keller Engineering Lab Building on the Pew Campus in Grand Rapids.
On display will be eleven projects with a combined materials value exceeding $150,000. All projects were designed and built to address actual problems and needs of area manufacturing companies. The conference celebrates the successful completion of the Capstone Design Program, in which teams of senior engineering students solve real-world engineering design problems sponsored by participating industries and other sponsoring organizations.
The projects take two semesters to complete, and at the end the companies who participate have an actual working product. The costs for the sponsoring industries are materials and a small project fee -- the students are not paid for their work, but instead gain college credit and valuable real-life working experience.
"Students gain a lot of real-world, practical experience in designing products. There is no way of learning this in the classroom," said Jeff Ray, Director of the GVSU School of Engineering and coordinator of the Capstone Design program.
The projects on display Friday were completely designed, built, and tested by 49 students. Sponsors of the projects include:
- Dana Perfect Circle Division (Muskegon)
- L3 Communications Avionics Systems (Grand Rapids)
- Smiths Aerospace (Grand Rapids)
- Cascade Engineering (Grand Rapids)
- Bissell (Grand Rapids)
- Industrial Resources of Michigan (Grand Rapids)
- Paulstra CRC (Grand Rapids)
- Oliver Products (Grand Rapids)
- Van Timmeren Greenhouses (Allendale)
The day culminates in the Order of the Engineer ceremony, which is a special commencement ritual for Engineering students. The graduates earn their degrees later in the year than the traditional spring ceremony because they must complete a year-long co-op experience. In the ceremony, each student receives an iron ring, placed on the little finger of the working hand, which symbolizes bridging the step between training and experience. The practice started in Canada and is firmly established in the U.S.
