Students showcase capstone projects in 22nd annual Engineering EXPO
The University of Idaho Clean Snowmobile Team won big Friday at the 22nd annual Engineering and Design EXPO, the longest running student engineering showcase in the Northwest that features senior engineering capstone projects.
“It’s a great opportunity for engineers of all sorts, and I would just say … if you are in the engineering field, get out there and work on a project. Get some hands on experience,” said Mark Woodland, mechanical engineering major and a team member of the UI Clean Snowmobile Team.
Jackson Flynn | Argonaut
Sophomore Meghann Hester explains what her engineering team does to improve the overall efficiency of a stock snowmobile. This was one of many projects shocased at the 22nd annual Engineering Expo on Friday May 1st.
Students presented their respective projects in booths for viewing by the public and judgment from EXPO judges. The booth presentations were judged by 54 judges who determined which projects would win recognition for presentation excellence and excellence in technical sessions. This year’s judging pool included representatives of UI, the Boeing Company, Schweitzer Engineering Company and Micron Technology, among many others. A capstone project also won the People’s Choice Award, which was voted on by ballots cast by the public.
The EXPO came to a close with the presentation of 23 awards — 12 of those awards were for excellence in booth presentation, 10 for technical sessions and only one brought home the People’s Choice Award.
The People’s Choice Award went to the Tensegrity Internal Actuation project. The goal of the project is to design a moving internal payload to provide a movement method for SuperBall, NASA’s concept space exploration robot.
An award winner for excellence in booth presentation was the UI Clean Snowmobile Team. The Snowmobile Team’s project was to modify a snowmobile to be quieter and more fuel-efficient.
“This year, we made quite a few modifications and we actually did pretty well in competition,” said Meghann Hester, mechanical engineering major and a team member of the UI Clean Snowmobile Team.
Jackson Flynn | Argonaut
Keynote speaker Karen Higgins gives a presentation on Preventing Interstellar: Millennials’ Role in Shaping the Future at the 22nd annual Engineering Expo on Friday May 1st.
The snowmobile team competes in the SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge each year against other universities to see which school can make the quietest, least pollution-causing engine. Hester said this year the team competed against schools from across the U.S., schools from Canada and even one from Finland. For the 2015 competition, UI’s Snowmobile Team took fifth.
“The competition originally started because Yellowstone put pretty strict standards on snowmobiles and then restricted them from the parks,” Woodland said. “So industry pushed and motivated college students to start working on snowmobiles to make them cleaner and better. That way we can put them back in the national parks and people can still have fun riding them.”
Hester said winning an award for her team’s booth meant a lot.
“Honestly, I think that’s it’s pretty great,” Hester said. “We did try hard with the display, even though we don’t always put in the most time for it, since we are always working on other things. It’s still really great to set up our stuff and have people like it.”
Aleya Ericson can be reached at [email protected]