CEAS students earn IME 1420 AutoCAD awards

The three winners of the Fall 2009 AutoCAD competition were honored at a ceremony before an audience of students who were eligible to compete in the Spring 2010 competition.

Slobodan Urdarevik, lead lecturer for IME 1420 Engineering Graphics, presented awards to the three winners of the Fall 2009 AutoCAD competition before students enrolled in the Spring 2010 IME 1420 class.

The AutoCAD competition is held at the end of each semester for the 300 or more students enrolled in IME 1420. For the class, they complete about 50 assignments. For the competition, students create a two-dimensional AutoCAD drawing and a 3D-solid model of a complicated part. They must show all dimensions and all symbols needed for manufacturing.

Urdarevik praised the winners of the last fall’s competition. “This competition was very close,” he said. “All three winners did excellent work.”

Fall 2009 AutoCAD Winners

Slobodan Urdarevik (left), lead faculty for IME 1420 Engineering Graphics, with Fall 09 AutoCAD winners (L to R) Nick Loedeman (1st), Daniel Thomas (2nd), and Jacob Cammenga (3rd) and Dr. Paul Engelmann, IME chair.

First-year mechanical engineering major Nick Loedeman won first-place. He graduated from Mattawan High School, where he took two years of board drafting and one year of CAD related experience. That experience included a month of AutoCAD. For the rest of the year, he studied ProEngineer. He presently belongs to the Society of Automotive Engineers, where he has been putting his education and experience to work on the suspension team of the Formula SAE project. His future plans are open.

The second-place winner is Daniel Thomas, a first-year mechanical engineering major. A Middleville, MI, native, Thomas graduated from Thornapple-Kellogg High School, where he had four years of computer-aided design (CAD) classes. He used his CAD abilities at an internship with Middleville Tool and Die last summer. His goal is to eventually design off-road race cars.

Earning third place is Jacob Cammenga, a first-year aeronautical engineering major and a graduate of Hudsonville High School. He came to WMU with two years of classes in CAD. He hopes to join AIAA and work on the Design, Build, and Fly competition. His future plans include finding an internship to prepare him for a future career at NASA.

All three winners received Best Buy gift cards and engraved plaques, which were donated by Dr. Hooks, Inc., a Kalamazoo-based business.

Dr. Paul Engelmann, IME department chair, congratulated the winners and encouraged the audience members to participate in this semester’s AutoCAD challenge. “These students have earned recognition that demonstrates their ability to apply what they have learned in the classroom,” he said. “You all have the same opportunity next week.”

Mamo wins 2nd TA Award

Eric Mamo,a teaching assistant (TA) for IME 1420 Engineering Graphics, has been voted the “Best TA for Fall 2009.” It is the second
time that the mechanical engineering senior has won the award. He won his first TA award for the Fall 2008 semester.

Selection is determined by a vote by all the TAs who instruct each semester’s more than 300 students in the fine points of AutoCAD and drafting. “I enjoy all aspects of teaching the lab,” he said. He came to WMU from Milford, on a Michigan Builders’ Trade Scholarship.

An avid archery competitor, Mamo organized and actively supported Bronco Archery RSO. In 2007, he achieved the designation of All-American Academic, which means that given his GPA and his placement in archery competitions, he was one of the top American competitors. In Summer 07 he represented WMU at the Collegiate Archery World Championship in Valencia, Venezuela.

In 2008, Mamo interned with Cornerstone Engineering in Wixom.

For more information about CAD drafting at WMU, e-mail Urdarevik at slobodan.urdarevik@wmich.edu

New 2010 Sunseeker ready for 2010 American Solar Challenge

 
The 2010 Sunseeker Team: front, kneeling, L to R: Jesse Wick, Megan Derwich with duck mascot Arnsie, Courtney Rawlings, Mitch Panek, Andrew Oman, and Madeline McAuley. Standing, L to R: Abe Poot, Joshua Allen, John Kapenga, Nicholas Killoran, Byron Izenbaard, Alex Hoeksema, Brad Bazuin, Kenwood Hoben, Fred Sitkins, and Paul Engelmann

In a ceremony at the CEAS Parkview Campus, the WMU Sunseeker Solar Race Car team unveiled its new version of Sunseeker – the WMU entry in the 1,100-mile 2010 American Solar Challenge (ASC2010) race. WMU will compete with about 17 teams from across the country and from Canada, Taiwan and Germany.

This is the 10th time WMU students have participated in a biennial ASC solar race and is one of only a few teams that have participated in all previous races. The only other Michigan collegiate participant is a team from the University of Michigan.

The challenge officially began on June 12 with Scrutineering at the Motorsport Ranch Cresson, Texas, where cars are inspected to assure conformity to all technical and safety regulations. On June 19, the competitors travel to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the official race which begins the next day, traverses four states, and ends June 26 in Naperville, Illinois.

The new Sunseeker features state of the art technology. It was designed with a new, more aerodynamic shape (left), outfitted with new solar arrays recycled from prior solar cars, and built and assembled by the 2010 team

Leading the WMU team is Nicholas Killoran, a mechanical engineering senior, who, along with several other team members, spent all their time recently working on the solar car in the Plastics Processing Lab at the Parkview Campus.

According to Abraham Poot, Sunseeker advisor, the team worked around the clock to prepare this year’s entry, which contains an innovative new design.

Dr. Paul Engelmann, IME chair and a major contributor to the Sunseeker project, said the team spent six months grinding the cells off the original vehicle for re-use as solar arrays for the new car. He said they had saved $150,000 by recycling the gallium arsenide solar cells. “This team has been working around the clock for six weeks,” he said. “This team truly understands the concept of Just in Time.”

The ASC competition is organized to promote an understanding of the benefits and promise of solar energy technology. Students are encouraged to be creative and to learn from the hands-on experience.

To find more information about the WMU project, visit the blog at http://sunseeker2010.blogspot.com/

The CEAS issues its own brown and gold coin to make connections

The CEAS Challenge coin: CEAS icon (L:tails) and the WMU seal (R: heads)

The College of Engineering and Applied Sciences has struck its own brown and gold coin to connect with and form bonds among its alums, friends, staff, and faculty.

Last January at the CEAS All-Hands Meeting, all members of the CEAS team received the new CEAS coin, which is approximately 1.75 inches in diameter.

CEAS Dean Tony Vizzini, who came to the CEAS last fall, introduced the CEAS brown and gold coin as a way to make connections. “Make sure you carry the brown and gold coin at all times,” he said. “We want you to show your connectivity to the college.”

The officially dedicated coin’s head is the Western Michigan University seal and CEAS logo is its tail. “Having a coin is a way to show that you belong to what’s on this coin,” Vizzini said. “It’s shiny and it stands out, and you can lay it on your desk.”

Vizzini explained that the idea of having a unique coin to connect a team comes from the military, where challenge coins date back to World War I. Before the US entered that war, a wealthy American Air Force pilot from New Jersey had coins struck for members of his flying squadron. They carried the coins to show their solidarity.

The pilot wore his in a leather sack around his neck. When he was shot down and captured by the Germans, his papers were confiscated, but not his coin. He escaped from the Germans and headed for France, where he was immediately captured by the French who thought he was a German saboteur. He was scheduled to be executed until the French noticed the coin he wore around his neck and recognized the squadron symbol.

When his story checked out that he was an American flying with the British, the French gave him a bottle of wine instead of executing him. “The coin saved his life, and he was benefitted by receiving an adult beverage,” Vizzini told the audience. “So carrying the coin could save your life, and it could also get you an adult beverage.”

The members of the flying squad agreed to carry their coins at all times and to challenge others to do the same. If a coin-carrying member challenged another to show his coin, the other had to either show the coin or buy the challenger a drink. If the challenge was met, then the challenger had to buy the drink.

“I carry mine all the time,” Vizzini said. “We want all of us here and all of our alums and friends to carry their coins all the time.”
The new coins were handed to each Spring 2010 CEAS graduate in a handshake. “When you hand it to someone, give it to them in your palm,” Vizzini said. “It’s a way of connecting.”

To get the coins to all CEAS alums, Vizzini told the CEAS faculty, administrators, and staff, “If you meet an alum who doesn’t have one of our coins, give him yours and we’ll give you another one.”

The coin was designed by Laura Decker, CEAS finance analyst.