RAPID CITY, S.D. (April 9, 2013) – A year’s worth of technical design research culminates Tuesday, April 16, for graduating Mines students, as they demonstrate their achievements at the 2013 Senior Design Fair.
The interactive fair will be from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. in the Surbeck Center ballroom at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. The event is open to the public. There is no admission charge.
This year’s line-up includes 62 projects as diverse as a Samurai sword project; helping to develop renewable wave energy technology; and humanitarian engineering projects in Haiti and Kenya.
Additional projects include a concrete airplane, composite guitar, Christmas light animation and local mine remediation.
For Ralph Grahek, instructor and technician in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, the fair’s impetus lies in industry. “When they move into the workforce, engineers are usually problem solvers. They have to develop creative solutions to these problems. Senior Design gives senior design students problems to solve.”
The fair also fosters collaboration as teams from one or more disciplines must solve the problem and come up with a "working" solution, Grahek notes.
Traditional student design projects from the Center of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing and Production (CAMP) will also be on display and include the Baja vehicle, Formula car, alternative fuel vehicle and aero design.
In addition to demonstrating their projects, team members will be available to answer questions about their systems and interact with the public.
All graduating seniors in engineering disciplines and computer science are required to participate in two semesters of team design. Many of the projects receive sponsorship from private industry, government agencies and local businesses.