CBE students place at First-Year Design Showcase

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Two hundred first-year Buckeye engineering students presented their unique solutions to a variety of real-world problems at the First-Year Design Showcase on April 22, 2019. Out of this group of talented students, four first-year Chemical Engineering students placed in the various projects showcased at the event. The CBE student winners and accolades include: 

First Place in the Integrated Transportation Systems poster competition: Alison Ritenour 
First Place in the Website competition: Ryan Burrows and Alec Glenwright
Third Place in the  Advanced Energy Vehicle poster competition: Emily Laudo 

The showcase is the culmination of a Fundamentals of Engineering course that challenges students to work in teams to solve a transportation or global problem and build a real-life model as part of a semester-long design-and-build project. This year students tackled one of three versions of the design project.

Emily Laudo and her group for the Advanced Energy Vehicle poster competition
Emily Laudo and her group for the Advanced Energy Vehicle poster competition

The Advanced Energy Vehicle project challenged students to create an autonomous electric vehicle transportation system. These vehicles used advanced energy concepts and energy management to successfully address a real-world transportation scenario modeled after Smart Columbus, a $140 million program to transform central Ohio into the nation’s premier transportation innovation region.

Incorporating the entrepreneurial development process, the Integrated Transportation System (ITS) project tasked students with finding and solving an existing transportation problem in the Columbus community to create economic or societal value.

Similar to the ITS project, the Social Impact Design project challenged teams to find and solve an existing problem, not just a transportation-related issue, this time on a global scale.

Top teams from each section of the Fundamentals of Engineering course were selected to participate in one of three showcase competitions—best website, best poster presentation or best performance in a track competition.

For the poster competition, students gave three presentations of their vehicles and data to support their designs, which were judged by Honda representatives, faculty, graduate teaching assistants and Ohio State alumni.

The track competition was composed of two rounds that tested vehicles’ ability to travel precise distances and for precise amounts of time under various loads. In creating their custom vehicles, students could use standard parts provided in the course as well as custom-designed 3-D printed and laser-cut parts.

The top six project websites from all sections were selected to participate in the website competition. It was judged by Matt Adams, owner and creative director of Dot The I Creative, who was enthusiastic about the quality of the work shown.

The 2019 First-Year Design Showcase was hosted by the Department of Engineering Education.

Category: Undergraduate