Monday, December 29, 2008

Nontraditional civil engineering major wins Spring 2008 AutoCAD title

A nontraditional civil engineering student who moved to Kalamazoo a year ago won first place in the 2008 Spring AutoCAD Contest, an event that challenges more than 300 students each semester to put the skills they learned in their IME 1420 Engineering Graphics course to work.

Bradley Gerbasich, who transferred to WMU from the University of Toledo, was honored by Slobodan Urdarevik, the lead lecturer for IME 1420, before an audience of students eligible to compete in the 2008 Fall AutoCAD Contest.

“I take great pride in this challenging competition,” Urdarevik said. “The awards from the prior semester are presented just before the next competition to motivate the next group to compete.”

Gerbasich spent 13 years in Toledo managing National Amusements, a large movie complex. After moving to Kalamazoo, he decided to enroll at WMU. Although he has technically earned enough credits to be a senior, he anticipates that completing the requirements for a civil engineering degree will take at least a couple more years.

Currently working as a co-op technician with SME [Soil and Material Engineers] in the Business, Technology, and Research (BTR), Gerbasich is involved in material testing of concrete, asphalt, and soil. His future goals probably involve “something in either geo-technical or structural engineering,” he said.

Gerbasich’s background in drafting includes high school classes and a college AutoCAD class taken about 10 years ago. “A lot has changed since then,” he said.

Kimberly Harms, a sophomore majoring in industrial and entrepreneurial engineering, won second place in the competition. The self-described “100 percent Kalamazoo” native had no prior experience in drafting. “I didn’t have any classes in this,” she said.

Urdarevik described Harms as “the hardest working student” in the Spring class. “She is only the second female to win an award in this competition,” he said.

Harms expressed her appreciation for the Kalamazoo Promise for enabling her to come directly to WMU. She was very busy with classes her first year but is now becoming involved with professional organizations like the Institute of Industrial Engineers and considering an internship next semester.

Harms’ primary career interest is in hospital work. “I’m really interested in work related to hospital efficiency studies,” she said. “I like being involved and don’t see myself as sitting at a desk.”

Justin Hamlin, an electrical engineering major, won third place. The South Haven native transferred to WMU from Lake Michigan College, where he took pre-engineering classes.

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Hamlin is a member of Engineers Without Borders and will start a co-op at Palisades Nuclear Plant in January. His previous drafting experience includes one drafting class at South Haven High School.

In a short address to the students, Dr. Paul Engelmann, chair of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (IME), encouraged students to take part in the competition. “Winning an award in this competition will look good on your resume and significantly enhance your ability to be hired,” he said.

All winners received gift cards from Best Buy and engraved plaques donated by Dr. Hooks, Inc., a Kalamazoo-based business that specializes in awards.

For the competition, students create both a two-dimensional AutoCAD drawing and a 3D-solid model of a complicated part. They must show all dimensions and symbols needed for manufacturing.

Urdarevik began offering drawing competitions when he came to WMU in Fall 2004. For more information, contact him at slobodan.urdarevik@wmich.edu

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

CEAS students and RoboBronco join the cast of feature-film Cherry

Numerous students – mostly from the CEAS – pulled all-nighters on a Saturday night to pretend they were engineering students in Cherry, a feature-length movie filmed in Kalamazoo. Actor Kyle Gallner has the leading role as an engineering student in his first year at an elite college engineering program. WMU’s Parkview Campus, with its high-tech facilities, provided an excellent backdrop for the story line.

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Between 3 p.m. on Sat., Nov. 15, and 8 a.m. on Sun., Nov. 16, CEAS students starred as extras for the film’s classroom scenes. The long night included multiple takes of CEAS students sitting in a real Parkview lecture hall pretending to be students in a fictional classroom. Bright lights, huge camera setups, and an abundance of electronic gadgetry filled more of the lecture hall space than the students.

In between takes, the students waited in the Extras Holding area, the DENSO cafeteria.

 

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"Being in the movie was crazy and fun," said Kendall Vasilnek, a civil engineering senior and film extra who added that filming took longer and required more people than she had initially thought it would.

Several faculty and staff members also stayed most of the night. Dr. Paul Engelmann, chair of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, and Courtney Rawlings, a graduate assistant in manufacturing engineering, oversaw the filming that took place in the CEAS Plastics Lab.

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Dr. Tarun Gupta, IME professor, and Srinivas Ghattamaneni, a graduate assistant in industrial engineering, supervised RoboBronco as the robot made its acting debut. Other participants included Dr. Karlis Kaugars, CEAS computer-aided engineering director (CAE); Chuck Overberger, CAE technician; and Tammy Bergman, CEAS office associate.

Cherry’s screenwriter and director is Jeff Fine, who said that the movie is being shot in Michigan because of the state’s new tax incentives for filmmakers.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Five honored with 2008 CEAS Dean Awards for outstanding work

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Five CEAS faculty and staff members won 2008 CEAS Faculty and Staff Awards. WMU Provost Tim Greene, who initiated the annual awards two years ago when he was the CEAS dean, presented this year’s awards to Dr. Peter Parker and Dr. Margaret Joyce, Dept. of Paper Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Imaging (PCI) professors; Slobodan Urdarevik, Dept. of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (IME) faculty specialist II; Dr. Zijiang James Yang, Dept. of Computer Science (CS) assistant professor, and Abraham Poot, the CEAS technical specialist for IME and MAE.

“Every year we recognize another set of faculty and staff who are truly outstanding," Greene said.

Parker, the 2008 CEAS Outstanding Educator, has been teaching WMU chemical engineering classes since 1997. He is an advisor to the chemical engineering program, and he incorporates WMU’s “designation as student-centered” into both teaching and advising. His teaching methods evolve from combining new techniques with those that withstood “the test of time.” Parker’s background includes a University of Rochester BS in chemical engineering, a University of Pittsburgh MBA, and University of Michigan MSE and Ph.D. in chemical engineering. His research interests are process modeling and simulation, tissue manufacturing, and engineering ethics. He’s a longtime member of the Faculty Senate, chairs the Academic Information and Technology Council, and is a member of WMU's Ethic Center advisory board.

Winning the 2008 CEAS Outstanding New Educator, Urdarevik, IME 1420 Engineering Graphics lead instructor, teaches three mass lecture sessions of up to 120 students and coordinates up to 14 student teaching assistants (TAs). His credentials include two U.S. patents and three U.S. patents pending for his teaching strategies.

Each semester Urdarevik coordinates a design competition for the more than 300 students enrolled in IME 1420 and an annual Best TA competition. He is an official reviewer of several graphics text books. Before coming to WMU in 2003, he taught at Humber College in Toronto. He has a mechanical engineering master’s degree from the University of Skopje in Macedonia.

Joyce, the 2008 CEAS Outstanding Researcher, has assumed major roles in securing over one million dollars in external funding through grants and contracts for diverse projects that include bolstering homeland security through use of RFID-radio frequency identification and developing a new coating measurement system in the foundry industry. A recognized leader in the coating industry, she is widely published and has coordinated many conferences. With 10 other CEAS faculty, she recently started CAPE [Center for Advancement of Printed Electronics] for multidisciplinary research.

Yang, whose primary research interest is computer system reliability, won the 2008 CEAS Outstanding New Researcher. He was recently awarded a $400,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for research on multithreaded program verification. He has also been awarded five other external research grants since 2003. Yang’s papers have been published in top computer science journals and conferences, and he recently won the prestigious 2008 ACM TODAES Best Paper Award. The IEEE senior member is an inventor with five U.S. patents and five patents pending. Yang came to WMU in 2003 after earning a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Winning the 2008 CEAS Outstanding Staff Award, Poot, the IME\MAE lab coordinator, supports computer and electrical equipment design, assembly, and maintenance. Since 2001, Poot has served as project adviser of the WMU Sunseeker Solar Car teams, which have placed in several North American Solar Challenge competitions and have won both design and sportsmanship awards. For his support in many areas, including tribology, thermal systems, aerodynamics, biomechanics, foundry, and automotive laboratories, Poot was recently honored with the 2008 WMU Distinguished Service Award.

The winners of this year’s awards were selected by a committee of last year’s winners from nominations made by faculty, administrators, and emeriti. These five 2008 award winners will serve as the selection committee for those who win next year’s awards.