Group captures first among 25 teams from five universities
A team of students with the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering won first place in the engineering design competition at the Texas A&M Regional Engineering Conference.
Founded in 2001, the conference is designed to provide high-level engineering students with an opportunity to develop teamwork, networking and leadership skills.
Students participating in the design competition were given one day to build a device to keep a ball in motion for as long as possible using an assortment of random items, such as string, a hula hoop and some wood.
Engineering students Leif Bagge, Michael Fernandez and Kevin Weaver took first place in the competition, beating out 25 teams from four other universities, including Kansas State University, Texas A&M University, Texas A&M-Kingsville and the University of Missouri.
Their device utilized a string under tension unwinding slowly, thereby moving a platform where the ball sat. The machine kept their ball in motion for more than 2 hours, 39 minutes. That time nearly doubled the mark achieved by the second-place team and was about four-times as long as the third-place team.
Even more impressive, the group of freshmen captured first in a competition that was primarily comprised of upperclassmen students.
According to the students, their team succeeded in large part because they had previously worked together on similar projects in ENGI 1100 Honors, an introductory engineering course that encourages students to utilize different fields of engineering to complete hands-on projects.
“We learned in the course that simplicity is preferable for building a reliable machine,” said Fernandez.
The course is a new addition to the college of engineering and is taught by Julie Trenor, assistant professor and director of undergraduate student recruitment and retention with the college of engineering.
Over the course of a semester, students in this class form teams that are challenged with “McGyver Projects” where they are asked to build simple devices using everyday items. In addition, they are given a larger project with a $20 material budget. The team of Bagge, Fernandez and Weaver won the design competition for the class, which earned them the opportunity to compete at the Texas A&M conference.
According to Trenor, the class was designed to give first-year students the opportunity to do hands-on engineering work at a time when the majority of their classes focus on mathematics and other technical fields.
“My goal for ENGI 1100 is to teach freshmen that engineering is a creative endeavor,” Trenor said. “They will have several more years to gain the necessary technical knowledge for their degree. At this level, I want them to become more comfortable with open-ended thinking and teamwork. If they can learn that these skills are critical to being an effective engineer, they will be better prepared to succeed in the rest of the curriculum.”