Over 1,300 people attended the Senior Design Project Showcase on May 2 to explore the wide-ranging innovations of CEET seniors whose efforts exemplify the college’s dedication to bridging theory with practice.
That figure includes more than 400 students from 17 high schools and middle schools who poured into the NIU Convocation Center. They came from Rockford, Sycamore, as well as farther-flung spots such as Bartlett, Berwyn, Rich Township, Carver Military Academy in Chicago and even one small group from Michigan.
In all, there were 55 Senior Design teams: 27 from mechanical engineering, 19 that were interdisciplinary (covering four disciplines—electrical, mechanical, biomedical and mechatronics), seven industrial and systems engineering, and two from engineering technology.
Garnering particular attention were two mechanical engineering teams in support of ICECHIP, the In-situ Collaborative Experiment for Collection of Hail in the Plains. The students have outfitted a 2022 Ford F-150 pickup truck, known as the “Huskie Hail Hunter,” to make it hail resistant as part of an $11 million National Science Foundation-supported field project co-led by NIU Atmospheric Science Professor Victor Gensini.
Another eye-catching group was the fluid power bicycle team from the NIU at RVC mechanical engineering program. A week earlier, that team won Grand Champion laurels at the National Fluid Power Association competition in Ames, Iowa.
It’s the second consecutive year that students from the program, overseen by instructor and program advisor Ghazi Malkawi, have earned Grand Champion recognition.
(See the WTVO segment about the Senior Design Showcase, including an overview of the team’s triumph.)
Reflecting CEET’s array of disciplines, the other 50-plus projects displayed solutions on posters and had tangible prototypes or other digital artifacts at their respective tables. All the teams received feedback from professional industry evaluators and Engineering and Technology Alumni Society (ETAS) volunteers judged teams that had advanced to compete for awards in the following categories: Problem Solving, Application of Engineering Concepts, Innovation and Teamwork.
The winning teams:
Faculty advisors: Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Hyung Jin Jung and Senior Associate Dean Mansour Tahernezhadi.
Faculty advisors: Industrial and Systems Engineering Presidential Teaching Professor Purush Damodaran and Professor Omar Ghrayeb.
Faculty advisors: Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Kyu Taek Cho and Mechanical Engineering Presidential Teaching Professor Nick Pohlman.
Faculty advisors: Electrical Engineering Assistant Professor Farzin Ferdowsi and Senior Associate Dean Mansour Tahernezhadi.
Over 20 companies sponsored teams as they provided a more immediate connection between academic learning and industry application. Fermilab sponsored six teams and co-sponsored one other team’s efforts with Argonne National Laboratory.
Event sponsors were Collins Aerospace, Illinois Department of Transportation, Trane Technologies and Woodward.
