After several months of working on a series of projects in the Introduction to Engineering Design (IED) course, several teams of Rensselaer undergraduate students tested and displayed their final designs on May 3. The event was held in the Darrin Communications Center (DCC) Great Hall.

IED, a required course for all sophomore engineering students, emphasizes creativity, communication, and collaboration to create a marketable product. Each semester, students are assigned an engineering challenge.

Several teams of students from a section taught by Steve Derby, associate professor and co-director of Rensselaer’s Flexible Manufacturing Center, created devices to demonstrate some of the fundamental theories and principles of physics. The devices were tested by more than 80 middle school students from area schools, including Draper Middle School in Rotterdam and Ichabod Crane Middle School in Valatie.

Several student teams from two special sections of IED also displayed their projects, developed under the guidance of Burt Swersey, a lecturer in Rensselaer’s mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering department. The teams started off the spring semester by focusing on a project to redevelop a solar crop dryer from Indonesia, and by the end of the semester many of the teams had redirected their designs.

Final projects included: a self-powered bean fermentor with sensors to measure temperature and conductivity of the crop and improve quality of final product; a mechanically or solar-powered device to split cocoa pods in Ghana, the world’s largest producer of cocoa; a bio-gas system to produce fuel and replace wood; a water purification system that uses solar energy; and a human powered system to produce electricity for lighting, small refrigerators, pumps, or electronic devices.

Photo Credit: Rensselaer/Jessica Otitigbe

Published May 7, 2007