Monday, May 09, 2005

senior design night

This past Saturday, I joined a few friends over in the Science Building for the Engineering department’s senior design night.  My pals (Sarah and Laura—you remember them) and I were supporting two friends that lived on our dorm floor two years ago.  Anyway, I missed out on most of the festivities (earlier they had an open house, followed by a dinner), but I was able to hear each of them present their projects.  They were mercifully clear about their processes and the finished designs.  I learned so much!

Becca’s group (”Campamento Shalom”) went first.  She and three other students designed two buildings that will be used at a Christian camp in Guatemala.  As in: people are actually going to be building these!  And living in them!  Sarah, Laura, and I were so proud of Becca.  The presentation was great: they showed different sketches and plans for the buildings (a dormitory and a family-style home), as well as a 3-D video of what the camp would look like.  Seriously, she’s just a year or so older than I am… and she’s designing real buildings.  I’m still so excited about this.  They explained how the designs had to take into account the seismic activity nearby as well as the types of building materials best suited for the area. 

Then we went to see Briley’s group (”The Chemies”).  They designed a plant that can produce twenty thousand kilograms of a kind of biodegradable plastic.  (I didn’t even realize that there was such a thing as a biodegradable plastic…)  My friends and I agreed that the best part of their design was the “agitated bubble tank.”  (English majors don’t get to make agitated bubble tanks… which is probably okay, but still: what a cool thing to know how to do!)  I also thought it was amazing that their design for the building included a “blow-out wall” on the side of the plant that housed the high-pressure equipment.  Just in case anything exploded, the wall was designed to, well, blow out with minimal damage to everything around it. 

Who thinks of these things?!!  I just read books!!

Anyway, we were very, very impressed.  I remember two years ago, when I was a freshman and Becca and Briley were sophomores… usually when I came down to their room, they were working on physics problems.  I guess it all paid off!  My only physics class was three years ago—so don’t step into anything that I design!! —jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 05/09 at 06:04 PM
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