ME SENIOR PROJECTS

“moment of sheer joy”

After months of work, anticipations run high when senior projects are put to the test

▲ Mechanical engineering student Javier Guerra was so inspired by his senior project working on a project to help a beekeeper who is an injured war veteran, he enrolled in a beekeeping class at Cal Poly to better understand the physical requirements of the job. On a dirt field near Sacramento, beekeeper Alex Jauregui attaches the arm of a modified dolly to the top of one of his bee boxes, then pulls the dolly back, lifting the 80-pound box with ease.

Then Jauregui, who is also a wounded war vet, turns to Cal Poly student and fellow veteran Javier Guerra, who is standing to his left, and offers a thumb’s up.

“There it is, brother,” Jauregui says with a smile. Then he turns to the rest of the team that designed and built the dolly for its senior project. “You guys passed!”

After nine months of researching, designing and building, this is the moment mechanical engineering students both fear and relish — presenting their final project to the client. While there is always a possibility the product won’t work as planned, when it does, students often feel a rush of elation — followed by a sigh of relief.

▲ Mechanical engineering students, from left, Kyle Ladtkow, Jose Velazquez and Javier Guerra modified a dolly to help a wounded veteran lift bee boxes for his business near Sacramento.

Mechanical engineering students Jacob Davis, left, and Luke Vickerman test the research raft they built for their senior project at Lake Nacimiento. The project was sponsored by Lawrence Livermore National Lab so they could have a scaled version of their research rafts, which would allow them to more efficiently develop and test new control strategies.

“That moment of sheer joy — seeing the thing that you created come to life — it’s just incredible,” said Peter Schuster, professor and senior project advisor.

Mechanical engineering senior projects represent relevant real-world work designed to address challenges posed by industry or individuals with specific needs. And since teams present projects to clients when they’re finished, they are able to witness client reactions — often as they perform their product’s first real test.

When Seth Yakel’s interdisciplinary team took their all-terrain, adaptive wheelchair to Pismo Beach a day before graduation ceremonies, they weren’t sure how it would work. The chair was made for AmpSurf, a nonprofit that offers surfing as therapy, and delivered during the organization’s VetSurf event.

“After nine months, we finally delivered it and saw it in action on the beach,” Yakel said.

Despite a potential last-minute disaster – team members quickly fixed an initial glitch that caused the chair to stall — the chair successfully transported veteran Sarah Taylor to the shoreline, leading to sighs of relief. Elation followed when Yakel was able to control the chair with a smart phone while sitting on a surfboard in the ocean.

Mechanical ▲ engineering student Seth Yakel performs last-minute adjustments (above) on an all-terrain, adaptive wheelchair. Yakel later controlled the chair from his smart phone (below) while on a surf board in the ocean.

Continued from Page 7 “This chair is ideal for a paraplegic who has use of their upper body but not their lower body and for lower limb amputees who don’t wear their prosthetic in the water,” said Dana Cummings, AmpSurf’s founder and president. “I think it is amazing, and it will really impact the access for adaptive surfers.”

The adaptive wheelchair team had added pressure: Local media were there to cover the story, which wound up leading to national attention.

“It’s a very complex project for students to do, but these Cal Poly students come through – they put in an incredible amount of effort,” said Jim Widmann, chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department, who acted as an advisor to the project.

Another senior project team tested its project – an unmanned research vessel — for the first time at Lake Nacimiento, with sponsors from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory there to witness the test.

“They have put nine months into this project, and now it’s all on the line today,” said Schuster, the faculty advisor. As they carried their raft to the water, the students felt the pressure.

“I’ve been an anxious all day today and all day yesterday,” said one of them, Jacob Davis. “I had trouble getting to sleep last night. I was, like, ‘Oh, is this going to work?’ And all the math in the world can tell you that something is going to work, and you just don’t know.”

When the vessel both floated and maneuvered as they had hoped, Davis pumped a fist in the air, then patted his chest, shook his head and smiled.

“I’m going to tell you I’m going to take lots of photos, and I’m going to cry myself to sleep tonight at a job well done,” he said. “Because it was awesome just seeing it all come together.”

Paul Nyholm, an engineer for Lawrence Livermore, said the students had done well with conceptual, critical and final design reviews beforehand. But reviews are one thing. The trip to Lake Nacimiento would show if the product they manufactured — a more compact version of what the lab uses on the open ocean — would work.

“At the end of the day they’ve actually made a prototype that we’re out here testing today, and it’s working swimmingly well,” Nyholm said, as the vessel traveled on water behind him.

As anxiety-producing as the final delivery can be, for students it can also offer the greatest sense of accomplishment they will experience in college. Prior to delivering his team’s dolly to Jauregui, Kyle Ladtkow said he relished projects that solve problems for people.

While on active duty in Afghanistan, Army vet Jauregui stepped on an explosive and lost two legs. After his return, a nonprofit helped him establish a business, Fury Bees, but lifting heavy bee boxes can be taxing with two prosthetic legs.

Ladtkow was eager to see how their dolly would help alleviate the pain.

“It’s going to be a great feeling, honestly,” Ladtkow said. “I’m just happy to know that we could put our time and energy into something that could really help him on a day-to-day basis.”

While the team had tested it on bee boxes on campus, seeing Jauregui use it offered a different reaction.

“It worked!” Ladtkow said, as bees fluttered around. “I mean, I knew it worked, but, you know . . . it’s nice to have validation.” n

“I had trouble getting to sleep last night. I was, like, ‘Oh, is this going to work?’ And all the math in the world can tell you that something is going to work, and you just don’t know.”

Jacob Davis, mechanical engineering student