CEAS projects showcased at 2009 WMU Day in Lansing

Late last spring, about 700 WMU supporters traveled to Lansing for the second annual WMU Day. Several CEAS projects were among the more than 30 showcased at the event aimed at introducing legislators to WMU. Here are some photos submitted by Abe Poot and the PCI department. In addition to those pictured on this e-news, the CEAS also featured Dr. John Patten and his plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

Concrete Canoe: WMU American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) students Allison Doty, Adam Eaton, Ryan Stoughton, and Mike Romkema brought Black Pearl – this year’s entry in the North Central concrete canoe competition.

RoboBronco: Manthiramurthy Paramasivam “talks” to RoboBronco.  Dr. Tarun Gupta, and IME professor and a team brought RoboBronco, a six-foot tall robot with a friendly horse face, to WMU Day.  Gupta mentored two robotics teams of area high school students, Quantum Ninjas #1677 and FLEET (Future Leaders Exploring Engineering & Technology) #2767, in the 2009 FIRST competition.

 FSAE car: The WMU Formula racing team of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) brought this year’s entry in the 2009 Formula SAE Michigan Competition.  The WMU team successfully completed all events at the competition, which requires teams to design and build a formula-style race car.

CAPE: Presenting examples of printed electronics from the new Center for the Advancement of Printed Electronics (CAPE): front (L to R): Dr. Margaret Joyce, Dr. Massood Atashbar, and Sara Lara; back (L to R): Dr. Erika Hrehorova, Dr. Marian Rebros, Michael Joyce, Dr. Dan Fleming.  Dr. Joungmin Cho is missing from photo

Flying Machines: Dr. Kapseong Ro led the development of a plane with solar panel wings (in front of the van) and teamed up with Dr. Jun-Seok Oh and a team to develop the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for traffic and emergency surveillance that is on top of the van.  Team members DaeWoon Park and Taeseung Kuk also participated.

 Sunseeker 05: WMU’s solar car team reviewed features of Sunseeker 05 while solar car adviser Abraham Poot photographically documented CEAS projects.

“Dr. Sam” offers a decade of hands-on metal-casting outreach

Every summer for the last decade, Dr. Sam Ramrattan, an IME professor, has been offering a weeklong, hands-on metal-casting workshop for high school students. At the 2009 workshop held last month, 10 students from the U.S. and Canada spent a week as college metal-casting students.

One element that makes the workshop fun is the hands-on aspect. “Dr. Sam,” as many refer to him, had students do real metal-casting work in the Metal Casting Laboratory at the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ Parkview Campus.

The students made molds, melted metal, and poured. “It’s a fun way to learn about metal casting,” said Luke Gossen, a Plymouth, Minnesota, junior.

Dr. Sam Ramrattan (left) oversees the students as they prepare
the molds that they will test with molten metal.

Ramrattan is a technical advisor to the American Foundrymen's Society and a Key Professor for the Foundry Educational Foundation. He offers the summer hands-on workshop to identify and promote the variety of viable metal-casting careers available today. It is open to up to 15 area tenth-through-twelfth-grade students.

In addition to the lab work, the workshop offered lectures and discussions on metal casting history, methods, and trends. Students examined metal casting from the perspectives of manufacturing (molding, melting, filling, and finishing), engineering, quality control, purchasing, marketing, and sales. They also networked with metal casters at area foundries.

Students attending this year’s metal casting workshop donned safety
apparel to pour molten aluminum into sand molds they
prepared. Dr. Sam Ramrattan (left) oversees the process.

Jordan Kimble, a senior in the manufacturing technology program and IME’s 2009 top manufacturing engineering senior, assisted in the workshop. He will represent IME at the upcoming Foundry Educational Foundation (FEF) conference.

WMU administrators provided the students with materials about programs and requirements at WMU. Students also reviewed career opportunities with a panel of industrial professionals and FEF.

The workshop included visits to area foundries to see real-world technology. Their tours included A.C. Foundry, Battle Creek, MI, and Metals Technologies’ Three Rivers Gray Iron Plant. The students also enjoyed activities in the Kalamazoo / Portage area.

Students who attended the program were selected on the basis of aptitude for math and science and were sponsored by various chapters of the American Foundry Society (AFS) and the North American Die Casting Association (NADCA). There was no cost to the students, who stayed in WMU dorms and enjoyed campus life.

In a thank-you note to Ramrattan following the workshop, Joshua Jarvis-Peters from Ontario, Canada, praised the workshop. “I wish it had been longer,” he said.

WMU’s metal-casting program is over 100 years old. The most recent accreditation began in 1992. Contact Dr. Sam for more information on WMU metal casting or on the summer workshop, at sam.ramrattan@wmich.edu

IME’s 2009 Presidential Scholar aims to design auto components

WMU President John Dunn (left) and Faculty Senate President John Jellies (right) present IME’s 2009 Presidential Scholar award to Jordan Avery, EGR senior

Avery, an Engineering Graphics and Design Technology (EGR) senior with a minor in automotive systems, is the 2009 Presidential Scholar Award from the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (IME).

The award is given each year to the most outstanding senior in each WMU department based on general academic excellence, academic and/or artistic excellence, and intellectual and/or artistic promise.

The 2009 award was presented to only 46 WMU students at the 29th Annual Presidential Scholars Convocation, held earlier this spring. For the event, Avery was joined by IME’s Dr. Mitchel Keil, whom he invited as his most supportive faculty member.

Avery, who is from Jackson and who maintains a 3.95 GPA, received a WMU Academic Scholarship from the Medallion competition and a Dean’s Scholar grant. He also won the Herbert E. Ellinger scholarship for engineering technology students.

Avery’s main academic interest is “design engineering of automotive components and making that process more efficient through the knowledge-based engineering (KBE) process,” he said.

Avery has completed two internships. First, he worked with the chief engineer at the Kalamazoo County Road Commission on project management and the review of local road construction projects. He also designed new plans for county drain culverts for approval through the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

For his second internship, he worked for the North American Automotive Experience Interiors Division of Johnson Controls, Inc., (JCI) as part of the KBE team involved with project automation.

“KBE works to assist in the engineering design process and ultimately speeds up the process, making it more efficient and saving the company time and money,” Avery said.

Avery’s responsibilities included building engineering knowledge into computer-aided design (CAD) applications to facilitate a lean approach to engineering. “This involved working with current subject matter technical experts (SMTEs) and building their knowledge into the CATIA CAD software through Knowledgeware programming,” he said. Avery’s professional memberships include the Golden Key International Honour Society and WMU’s Delta Chapter of Tau Alpha Pi Engineering Technology Honor Society, for which he presently serves as treasurer.

While working at JCI last summer, Avery joined the West Michigan CATIA User Group (WMCUG), a group of industry professionals that meet monthly to learn new CATIA functionality to keep their companies lean and efficient.

Outside of school Avery enjoys sports and outdoor activities. In the winter he snowmobiles with his Dad, and in the summer he water skis and wakeboards at his family’s cottage. He recently began mountain biking. “I also have an interest in automobiles, whether it be working on them or trying to keep up with the latest technology in the automotive market,” he said.

After he graduates in December, Avery would like to stay in West Michigan and be involved in “automotive technology to help companies develop a lean approach to engineering in the design phase.” Eventually he plans to pursue a master’s degree in engineering management and get involved in the management side of engineering design.