November 11, 2005

Freshman Engineering Design Day Showcases Variety of Design Projects

Freshman engineering students demonstrated their design projects that even included popular items like Barbie at the annual Freshman Engineering Design Day held November 22 in the McKimmon Center. (Photo: Greg Whitt)

Projectiles, robots and rockets will be featured at the Sixth Annual Freshman Engineering Design Day competition at the Jane S. McKimmon Center November 22 from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Freshman engineering students will showcase their design projects.

The students have been working in teams on their designs during the fall semester as part of the freshman engineering class, “Introduction to Engineering and Problem Solving.” Students chose from a list of possible projects at the beginning of the fall semester. Examples of projects include trebuchet design, water pressure rocket, bubble blowing machine, material transport and nuclear engineering.

As part of the course the students are required to design, build and test their projects. The Freshman Engineering Design Day involves a competition for points. Students who have selected the trebuchet project are required to use a counterweight to launch a ping pong ball at a fixed target. The water pressure rocket project involves creating a rocket from an ordinary plastic drink bottle that will propel a raw egg into the air and then release a parachute to bring the egg safely back to the ground. In the materials transport project, students were required to create an autonomous system that can move objects from a platform to a box.

The media is invited to attend the event. Demonstrations will be held throughout the day. For more information about attending, media representatives may contact Brian Koehler, coordinator of the First Year Engineering Program, at (919) 515-2315.

— weston —

Media contact:
Jennifer Weston, (919) 515-3848, weston@ncsu.edu
Brian Koehler, (919)515-2315, Koehler@ncsu.edu

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