PCEC News
Engineering Students Place 2nd in Society of Manufacturing Engineers Digital Manufacturing Challenge
December 14, 2020
Three School of Engineering students, Noah Bollo, Matthew Fontana, and Taylor Hepler, received the 2nd place award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers as part of the 2020 Digital Manufacturing Challenge.
Their project investigated the design and functionality of a fog collection device as a potential solution to the lack of drinking water faced by millions of people across the globe.
"The students conducted extensive research while utilizing their additive manufacturing background to design a simple yet effective device for sustainable water resource," said Dr. Sanjivan Manoharan, faculty advisor for the project. "Each member took ownership of their delegated task to have the entire project proceed seamlessly even though all three of them were working full-time at their respective co-op places."
Using the additive manufacturing process of fused deposition modeling, the students produced a durable fog collector designed to pull fresh water from the air and funnel it down into a collection chamber. The resulting product would be significantly less expensive to manufacture than fog collectors created using traditional manufacturing techniques, making it both more scalable and potentially more impactful due to improved affordability for more communities.
"The SME Digital Manufacturing Challenge provided me with an opportunity to further develop my design and engineering skills with fellow students outside the classroom setting. We saw firsthand how developing technologies, such as additive manufacturing, can be used in innovative ways to help populations in need," said Bollo. "I enjoyed applying problem solving skills learned in the classroom to take a creative approach and propose a viable solution for addressing the widespread issue of clean water scarcity."
Congratulations, Taylor, Matthew, and Noah, on your wonderful work applying engineering principles to improving health and quality of life of others. We are very proud of you!
Watch the Fog Collector YouTube video.
Visit the School of Engineering website.