Student Design Teams
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Student Design Teams: Time to put it all together
Student Design Team projects have included (clockwise, from top left): aero-design aircraft, "Chem-E" or chemically controlled cars, concrete canoe and steel bridge designs, Mini Baja cars and Formula SAE cars.
STUDENTS IN THEIR FINAL YEAR of study form teams and tackle a major design project from conception to completion. Past projects have ranged from aircraft to supermileage cars to bridge design, and very often the teams compete against teams from other colleges. Our design teams consistently rank highly in national and international competitions.
During the fall semester, the teams define their projects and prepare design concepts for faculty review.
Then in the spring, the teams get to work, and with guidance from faculty advisers, they bring the concepts to life.
The year culminates with a daylong showcase during which members from all the teams demonstrate their projects before peers, members of the college faculty, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Industrial Advisory Council and the campus community.
One team's story: Meet 'Team Windmill'
Joe Ayoub, left, and Johnny Luu debug a program inside the Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center. For their capstone project, they teamed with Ryan Aultman, below, to create a wind turbine that generates power for a library in the center.
AS A PROFESSIONAL ENGINEER, you’ll tackle design-and-build problems with pros from other fields. It’ll require your best thinking and problem-solving ability.
This, in short, also describes the work that final-year engineering students do as members of design teams in the College of Engineering. The seniors form small teams, and under the guidance of college faculty, they design a concept and create it.
“The Student Design Teams are a capstone project that provides seniors with experiences that will help in job interviews and throughout their careers,” says Dr. Jose Alexis De Abreu-Garcia, chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Beyond that, it’s an exercise that encourages engineers from different areas of expertise to work collaboratively to design practical solutions to practical problems.”
Ryan Ault designs the computer display that will indicate how much power is being generated and how much power is stored in the battery, among other outputs. The display is below.
The interface designed by Team Windmill provides real-time statistics. Enlarge image.
The turbine rises in a field next to the Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center. The turbine powers a library in the center.
'Challenging project'
Frequently, the solutions are creative, functional — even brilliant. Take for instance the recent work of an electrical engineer and two computer engineers. Together, they created a wind turbine that powers a small library in the nearby Cuyahoga Valley National Park. They designed the system, identified suppliers, managed the installation, wired everything up and debugged it.
“It was a challenging project,” said project member Joe Ayoub. “I was worried at some point that we had gotten in over our heads, but it all worked out, and we’ve developed something that will benefit the park for years to come.”
Other members of the “Team Windmill” were Johnny Luu and Ryan Ault. The senior design project coordinator is Mr. Gregory Lewis, director of electrical and computer engineering technical services. Faculty supervisors were Dr. Iqbal Husain, professor of electrical and computer engineering; Dr. Tom Hartley, professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Dr. Yilmaz Sozer, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.
The Team Windmill system consists of a 45-foot turbine with 12-foot blades. The turbine stands a few yards from the Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center. The turbine generates 2.4 kilowatts of power, and it stores the energy in batteries tucked into a corner of the center’s library. The system includes an easy-to-read computer interface designed by the team that shows wind speed, power generation, battery power level and other outputs.
When fully charged, the battery can power five laptops and a few lights inside the library.
The students’ project was supported by a $19,000 grant from the National Park Energy Partnership Program.
