IME’s hydraulic bike competes in Parker Chainless Challenge

Last spring the hydraulic bike was a creative design of one of IME’s senior capstone projects; this month a model created from that project competed in the Parker Chainless Challenge, a two-day event sponsored by Parker Hydraulics Group World Wide and held in Cleveland, Ohio, where the company is headquartered.

Michael Desgardins, a manufacturing technology major from Port Huron who graduates in December, and Elsamawal Mohamed, a graduate student in the manufacturing program, guided the bike to a fifth place finish.

For their senior project, Desjardins and now alumni Jacob Bacon (MFT), Gregory Kobrzycki (MFT), and Anthony Lipke (EGR) designed a hydraulic bike that transfers energy to the driving wheel through a hydraulic media and stores energy for uphill motion. They tested the hydraulic circuit in the lab and performed finite element analysis on a recumbent frame to ensure its structural integrity.

Mike Desjardins operates the hydraulic bicycle model that he and three others designed as a senior capstone project and presented in April.

When the other three members of the team graduated and Desjardins became involved with his final classes, Mohamed joined the team to update the design and fabricate the system. He spent two months building the hydraulic bike model. The task was challenging. “Everything was hard,” he said.

Mohamed credited IME lab coordinator Glenn Hall for providing the machining expertise and effort required to create the parts needed for the bike.

Graduate student Elsamawal Mohamed (left) shows off the hydraulic bicycle model that was built by the team. The bike design was developed by a Spring 2005 senior design team advised by Dr. Alamgir Choudhury (center) and sponsored by Parker Hannifin Corp. Michael Desjardins (right), a member of the bike’s four-man design team, rode the bike in the competition.

Last year Parker funded hydraulic bike designs at 10 colleges; at WMU, Parker also provided the lab that IME Professor Alamgir Choudhury, the advisor for the bike project, and MAE Professor Dr. James Kamman use for work in hydraulics and pneumatics.

Nine of the colleges participated in the challenge. Parker is currently seeking input to improve next year’s event. To prepare for it, Choudhury is planning to organize two senior design projects. One would work to improve the design of the current bike and the other would focus on designing an upright hydraulic bike using a standard bicycle frame.

To improve WMU’s odds of winning the next competition, Choudhury would like to involve sophomores and juniors in the project.

“The schools that did very well – like the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [which earned first place] – were successful because all levels of students were involved in the project,” he said. “Sophomores and juniors learn about the project and take over when the seniors graduate.”

Summer institute ’05 workshop offers metal casting exposure

Future foundry professionals gathered earlier this summer at the Summer Institute in Metal Casting 2005, held at the Parkview Campus at Western Michigan University’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Dr. Sam Ramrattan (seated, right) directed the Summer Institute in Metal Casting, a five-day event that attracted high school students from the Midwest to WMU’s CEAS Parkview Campus

IME’s Dr. Sam Ramrattan led 13 high school students through a five-day program designed to help the students learn about the application of math and science in the metal casting profession.

WMU senior Scott Seckel (right), WMU-FEF scholar, and Dr. Sam Ramrattan demonstrate pouring aluminum into sand molds as high school students watch from behind protective barriers

The students learned about molding, melting, and filling, as well as metal properties and the use of computer simulation in the metal casting process. In the lab, they worked with Ramrattan and WMU students on a variety of metal casting processes.

In addition to their lab and course work, the students met with WMU administrators to discuss university entrance requirements and expectations and met with professionals from the foundry industry to review career opportunities in metal casting

“I try to show them why this is a rewarding career,” Ramrattan said.

Students designed their own patterns and poured their own castings in the Metal Casting Lab located on the Parkview Campus.

Dr. Sam Ramrattan (standing, third from the left) observes high school students as they prepare a mold for lost foam casting.

The attendees toured Howmet Casting in LaPorte, IN, and Metal Technologies’ Three Rivers Gray Iron Plant. They also enjoyed a number of activities in the Kalamazoo / Portage metro area

Ramrattan has offered the summer metal casting program for the last six years. Students who attend the program are sponsored by various chapters of the American Foundry Society (AFS) and the North American Die Casting Association (NADCA). There is no cost to the students who stay in WMU dormitories and enjoy campus life.

IME professor introducing hands-on engineering to freshmen

Dr. Steven Butt is the first professor from the IME Dept. to teach ENGR 1010 Introduction to Engineering and Technology, a hands-on problem-solving class. It’s required for civil and construction engineering students and recommended for in-coming engineering students who have not declared a major.

During the first week’s lab section, Butt’s 30 students were organized in teams and asked to create the highest stand for a freely suspended metal platform. Their construction materials were marshmallows and dried spaghetti. “It’s a pass / fail assignment,” he said. “There’s a prize for the highest one.”

IME’s Steven Butt examines a structure of marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti being built by one of the 10 teams of students in ENGR 1010

Engineering 1010 was developed by Dr. Edmund Tsang, associate dean for undergraduate programs and assessment for the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Until this semester he has been the only teacher of record for the class.

The first ENGR 101 (the extra 0 was added this year) was offered in Fall 2003, followed by another in Spring 2004.

ENGR 1010 students at work

Two sections were offered each semester last year, and due to high enrollment in those, three classes are being offered this fall. Tsang is teaching two.

The three-credit-hour class meets each week for two hours of lecture and three hours of lab.

Students are introduced to the design and problem-solving aspects of engineering and given hands-on experience. “The whole idea is learning by doing,” Tsang said.

Butt has several more design challenges for his class, including a project he described as “a lower scale version of the senior capstone project they will do just before they graduate.”

Renae Hoglen, an Industrial Engineering senior, is assisting Butt with the freshman class.

Butt also teaches IME 2610 Statistics and is involved in research projects with Haworth, Bronson Hospital, and Stryker.

Tsang credited several CEAS professors for developing class modules and serving as guest lecturers to his class. They include IME’s Dr. Betsy Aller for a research and communication module. Others who contributed are Drs. Frank Severance, Damon Miller, Brad Bazuin, Andrew Kline, Tom Joyce, and Raja Aravamuthan.

Tsang said that colleges that have an introductory course in engineering usually have a higher retention rate than those that don’t. “That’s a national trend,” he said.

IME’s Steven Butt with ENGR 1010 lab problem solvers in a Parkview Campus hallway