Engineering Quarterly Fall 2023

Engineering Quarterly VOL.VI. . . No.1

FALL 2023

W ELCOME !

The Engineering Quarterly is published four times each year by the Hamm School of Engineering at the University of Mary. In each issue, we include articles from each of the seven majors we offer: Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, Construction Engineering, and Construction Management. The intended audience of the Engineering Quarterly includes engineers, engineering students, engineering alumni, future engineering students, and people working in related fields such as science, computing, and mathematics.

ABET ACCREDITATION RETROACTIVE TO 2020

The University of Mary’s new Hamm School of Engineering has been granted ABET accreditation for its Bachelor of Science degrees in civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering.

The Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) is an international, non-governmental organization that accredits post-secondary education programs in natural sciences and computing. ABET has granted its maximum certification of six years to the BSCE, BSME, and BSEE programs at the Hamm School of Engineering at the University of Mary.

“Accreditation is important because it says we meet the national standards and are up to par with every accredited engineering school

in the world when it comes to earning a Bachelor of Science degree in civil, mechanical, or electrical engineering,” said Assistant Professor of Engineering Anthony Waldenmaier, a member of the accreditation task force within University of Mary’s Hamm School of Engineering.

Waldenmaier is one of the first three engineering faculty hired by Dr. Terry Pilling in 2016. The four, with their own wealth of experience, immediately sought feedback from industry leaders at Bobcat and other engineering companies, asking them what they weren’t seeing from other engineering schools and what they would like to see from a new engineering school, the only one in western North Dakota.

With input in hand, they began the very insightful, careful, and intentional planning process – beginning with the student-first faculty they hire, the minute details of how every inch of classroom and lab space are used together, in a comprehensive and very hands-on curriculum that begins with the student’s freshman-year experience and continues through their senior year.

The four architects of the program all believed in the same philosophy they wanted emphasized at the Hamm School of Engineering that would ultimately produce the highest quality engineer. A new kind of engineer – one that is better technically, but also better trained in various soft skills such as communication, salesmanship, working with interdisciplinary engineering groups to understand each other’s skillsets, leadership qualities that allow them to work as a team, and being humble, caring, and community-minded.

Pilling believes strongly that earning accreditation is affirmation of all their hard work and attention to detail.

“Ultimately, the test of a great engineering school is whether our graduates are positive contributors to society within their communities, successful, and getting hired by companies,” emphasized Pilling, dean of the Hamm School of Engineering. “All our Hamm School of Engineering students are getting internships and our graduates are getting jobs.

Often, engineering firms are competing for our graduates early on in their four-year cycle and are hiring them – often before they even start their senior year. Our students are working at internships from their sophomore year up through graduation, and often the same company will offer them a position when they graduate. They are working for great companies.”

Those companies know that Hamm School of Engineering students have been tested and challenged each day – maybe more than most. Waldenmaier uses old-fashioned equipment to teach his surveying class, not because they can’t afford new equipment, but because the older equipment forces the student to know more about surveying – and more importantly, the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ behind the process. The latest and greatest

University of Mary

FREE

equipment automates most of the work for the user.

“I emphasize that in my surveying class,” said Waldenmaier. “If students were to do a surveying internship, they’ll have an instrument that, once it is started, will do all the work for them. If the automated machine gives the user an unbelievable or unrealistic number, these students will know immediately something is wrong with the machine.

They know because they have done the measurements the hard way, or old fashioned way, in my class.”

There are even courses they invented and are not likely taught at other schools, and some they have redesigned – all based on listening to engineering firms and receiving positive feedback from companies who have hired Hamm School of Engineering graduates or have students interning for them.

“In one instance, we had a freshman engineering student working as an intern,” recalled Rodrigo da Costa Aparecido, instructor and lab coordinator at the Hamm School of Engineering. “The actual engineer at the company quit and the University of Mary student took over from the engineer and completed all the work throughout the summer.”

There are now 13 full-time engineering faculty teaching, and even more adjuncts on staff who are experts in their field. Part of their vision is to cap the total number of Hamm School of Engineering students enrolled to somewhere between 250 and 400, so there are less than 20 students per class. Right now, there are approximately 220 total students.

“We are very proud of what we do because we can have that one-on-one interaction with our students, and we can more effectively integrate the knowledge in different ways: merge the hands-on part with the theoretical part and keep everything connected,” added Pilling. “We can see it in their eyes if they get lost – then we can step in and help the student get back on track. So, it is very personal, one-on-one interaction with the student. I live for those moments when the light bulb goes on in the head of the student, the student gets excited, and then they start asking us really cool questions and we all learn from it. They are all engaged and interested.

It’s fun.”

Pilling, Waldenmaier, and da Costa Aparecido admit that courses in the Hamm

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School of Engineering are very challenging – perhaps even more so than most engineering schools. Some classes are purposely designed to include a mix of engineering students in different majors so they can work throughout the school year together on projects from start to finish and get a better understanding of each other’s discipline, as would be the case in industry engineering work. All engineering students commonly take 18 credits a semester, including not only engineering courses, but also mathematics, physics, chemistry and humanities and social science courses.

“Just recently, this summer on back-toback days, we had two high school students, entering their junior years, visit our engineering school years in advance of coming to Mary,” recalled Pilling. “I am happy to see people planning so far ahead of time. We can encourage them to not forget about the math and the technical stuff they should be taking in high school to help prepare them for when they come here for engineering school.”

Both of those particular high school students are from out of state – Illinois and Washington state, respectively. It’s the perfect sce-

nario for engineering firms. After all, they began planting the seed for a new school of engineering years prior when the many companies associated with the oil boom in western and central North Dakota, and even those firms with little to no impact from the energy growth, began seeing young students go to engineering colleges in North Dakota, only to graduate and leave the state to work elsewhere.

“Right now, data shows 80% of our engineering students come from out of state,” emphasized da Costa Aparecido. “One of our goals, and an administrative goal, is to attract the highest quality of students from in state and out of state, have them fall in love with the University of Mary, BismarckMandan and other area communities, and then be successful so they stay and establish residency in North Dakota. In 2023, of those surveyed, 67% of our engineering graduates stayed in North Dakota to work for engineering firms.”

There is a saying, ‘success breeds success.’ With that thought in mind and its first awarded accreditation, Pilling says the

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Hamm School of Engineering has consequently added more new programs to its offerings: computer science, environmental engineering, construction engineering, and construction management, as it continues to follow the mission of the university’s founders and sponsors, the Benedictine Sisters of Annunciation Monastery, by continually listening to the needs of the region and beyond.

C IRCUITS P ROBLEM

By NANCY KELLY

Use repeated applications of Ohm’s law, KVL, and KCL to eventually find the values of Vs and Is in the circuit shown in the figure.

Is

3Ω 1A

+ Vs −

7Ω

6Ω

12 Ω

L OGIC P UZZLE

08:00 Time

09:00

By TERRY PILLING MAT 211

PHY 252

EEL 206

ENR 304

ENR 280

Room 222

Course Room 107

Room 104

Room 217

Room 210

Room Dr. Garcia

Dr. Pilling

Dr. Kelly

Dr. P.K.

Dr. Gauthier

Professor

Use the clues below to find out the times, professors, room numbers, and course numbers for a typical Fall 2023 student schedule. The answer is given at the end of this issue of Engineering Quarterly.

10:00 11:00 12:00

1. ENR 304 is in Room 210 2. Dr. Kelly does not teach PHY 252

Course

ENR 280 ENR 304 EEL 206 PHY 252 MAT 211

3. The five professors are Dr. Garcia (who teaches one hour after the EEL 206 course), the one teaching the noon course (who isn’t Dr. P.K.), the one teaching PHY 252 (which isn’t at 11:00), Dr. Gauthier, and the one teaching in Room 217.

4. The course in Room 210 meets sometime after the one in Room 222.

Room

Room 210 Room 217

5. Of the 10:00 course and PHY 252, one is Dr. Kelly and the other is in Room 107.

Room 104 Room 107

6. MAT 211 is an hour before PHY 252.

Room 222

7. Room 104 has never hosted ENR 280.

E NGINEERS TO THE R ESCUE !

By ASSAL HADDAD

where all of the new freshman who are starting along their degree path, along with their parents, friends, and relatives, gather for a ceremony of welcome by the sisters of Annunciation Monastery, the president of the university, and the faculty of the five academic schools.

We welcome the new students and celebrate them embarking on their journey of education and formation.

On the day of the Wheat Ceremony this year, only few hours before the ceremony started, Michael Raber (a great friend of Hamm School of Engineering) faced a technical problem with his beautiful convertible 1959 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner. The rear segment of the top was stuck wide open!

The Wheat Ceremony is an event that is held The car could not obviously be driven in that each year at the beginning of the semester shape.

Luckily, Rebecca Raber, conductor of UMary’s Capella choir group, conveyed the situation of her husband’s automobile to two Engineering students who sing with her at Capella. Caleb Raes and Jacob Ganzer rushed to the help and after examining the car’s situation concluded that the problem is electrical rather than mechanical.

Michael reached out to his friends in Engineering who came also to the help after the ceremony was over. First thing they did was form a clear understanding of the sequence of electrical and mechanical components in the retractable top. It turns out that, once the “opening of the top” sequence is initiated, electrical power would flow through one of the motors which has to run a complete cycle of motion until rear segment of the top

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goes down and clicks on a switch, stopping that motor and initiating another electric signal to another motor responsible for another job (i.e., screwing the top into place, etc.).

Engineering Quarterly FALL 2023 related issues.

“In my spare time, I enjoy playing guitar, lifting weights, painting, and collecting and drawing comic books. The university’s mission aligns perfectly with the Christian values and Catholic Faith of my upbringing. I love the small class size and tight-knit environment at the University of Mary that enable professors to be more involved in the students’ academic and professional careers.”

A RTISTS IN E NGINEERING

By ARIEL ARRIAGA

They examined the voltage at multiple places only to rule out locations that could be causing the problem and located motors that were not getting any signal. Professor Rodrigo da Costa Aparecido was able to locate the motor that was causing the problem, and concluded that it was not getting any signal, and that if an outer source of energy (12 volts) was provided for this motor the back segment of the top would start to move down but would not stop running automatically. He suggested they unplug the outer source of energy once the top was nearly all the way down. Caleb, and Jacob found a detailed electrical map of the car’s model to exactly locate where this motor was getting its energy from. Once the outer source was plugged in, the top started to move down. They allowed it to continue until it was within half an inch of its complete closure position and then stopped. This was enough to drive the care safely back home.

N EW FACULTY Ty Thinley joins our faculty this fall as Professor of Civil Engineering.

His areas of expertise include sustainable concrete materials, concrete performance and durability of alternative SCMs, characterization of SCMs and their reactivity in cement-SCM matrix, electrical properties of concrete, sub-surface exploration and soil testing. Ty’s teaching experience includes structural engineering courses such as statics, strength of materials, structural analysis, and structural design. His research interests cover anything related to concrete testing and soil investigation. Professionally, he has worked as a professional engineer designing deep and shallow foundations, directing subsurface exploration operations, and providing recommendations for site preparation and earthwork construction.

He has also worked as an external consulting engineer creating hydraulic model, conducting stability assessment, performing sediment transport analysis on fluvial systems. Additionally, he has consulted for the industry on structural, materials-related, and foundation-

Any kind of engineer, when asked, will tell you that they chose this avenue of life because they had a desire to directly influence reality through design.

From creative ideas to admiration for accuracy, the natural possession of intrigue for unlocking the world around them does not remain within, and sometimes even materializes as artistic expression, or a beautiful way of offering an experience. Evocation.

This past spring semester, the effort to introduce young girls to the field of Engineering was a topic of discussion. One idea was to ask our very own students about their inspiration, and I spent some time walking around our Engineering Design Lab inquiring among my peers. Very quickly conversations began to ignite entire rooms, with young men and women across the various disciplines and ranks jumping in. From the question, “How old were you when you decided to become an Engineer?” several strings of destiny that connected us all came to the fore.

Of those who grew up without an immediate connection to an engineer, it was commonly shared that engineering in and of itself was a completely illusive field, concept, and career for a majority of the lifetime. It was spoken: “Well, I actually didn’t know what an engineer was.”

“I thought it was something that was outside of what I saw myself doing, something much more technical.”

“I knew of it, but I didn’t really understand it.”

And finally, something that presented itself directly on two separate occasions. Different rooms, with different people, paired with the fact that it seemed to strike a chord for those listening: “Actually, I consider myself more of an artist than an engineer.”

Absolutely resounding.

You see, when it first came up in my social circles I had decided to pursue Engineering, I would get furrowed eyebrows and smiles followed by a “What?! Why not art?” It can feel sometimes that there must be a hard divide between artistic expression and optimized ingenuity, but truly I see no other avenue that allows for the expression of raw creativity to the degree that engineering does. In my mind, Engineering IS art.

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So, as an artist myself, I had nothing but a huge smile sway across my face. “Tell me more,” I inquired, later at a dinner with the women in engineering. We discussed the links between art and science in our lives, diving into memories of personal talents that infused our childhoods: drawing, painting, sculpting, writing, music. A knack for embedding thing we saw into the things we made. Dear to the heart, such inventions that allowed for blooming in the ways of our hands and minds, yet still not quite... “it.” Amidst the memories lingered a yearning of a sort that, unknown to us at the time, circled our talents and passions for math, technology, nature and science.

Creativity, as an ever-morphing force of human expression, is not limited to any one field or vocation, nor method of manifesting.

It pours forth from all of us, and is dauntingly yet effortlessly powerful enough to sway entire cultural currents: the invisible lever that makes people’s heads tilt. Arguably, what also makes creativity such a profound element of reality is its elusive nature; it does not exist as something easily utilized.

For anyone else that might struggle with understanding their inner creativity, I hope to shed some light. Here is a conversation I had with a new friend at my internship this past summer: Friend: What a beautiful skirt, I like your outfit today.

Ari: Oh, thank you! It’s actually a dress, I just folded the top part inside because I thought it looked pretty with this shirt.

Friend: Oh, really? I would have never guessed. I would never think to do something like that. I’m not creative, I’m very much a rule-follower. If the rules are that something has to be done a certain way, then I will do it as such.

Ari (thinking): Rules for wearing a dress?

This conversation was revolutionary. Creativity is not just about originality, nonconformity, nor breaking rules. Amidst it lies an angle where it’s a matter of offering a different perspective. Seeing through the looking glass where rules or limits are not even perceived to begin with! Problem solving in different dimensions, offering something new to another’s imaginative scope. In this way we are our brother’s keeper. The key, though, is action.

The driving factor of innovation is creativity. However, it is also the people who dare to counteract and redirect the flow of the masses. We all have multiple talents, yet to discover this inner urge as a prominent connector among my peers within the field that unites science, technology, art and math: that’s exciting. We have artists in our engineering program! Let’s find out what we can do.

Ariel is a Junior Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Mary Hamm School of Engineering

VOL.VI. . . No.1

S UMMER I NTERNSHIPS

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processes all at the same time.” take on a harder task and do a proficient job.”

“I believe that the company was impressed Isaac Trefz worked at by my work ethic, efficiency, and confidence the Bismarck branch in asking questions or reaching out to other of Apex Engineering Andrew Merz companies.”

Group in their electriworked for cal department. “My Bobcat here Gavin Argent worked duties included insertin Bismarck at for Montana-Dakota ing hand-drawn electrithe AcceleraUtilities in Bismarck, cal construction plans tion Center this ND. “I worked specifiand (really) old paper summer. “I was cally as a corrosion conplans into CAD. I also a design engitrol intern in the natural helped spec out differneering Co-op on the excavator sustaining gas division assisting ent components for fire alarms, lighting, and team. My focus was fixing manufacturing in maintenance of their other systems in buildings. I learned a lot and warranty problems to improve the quality protection system. The of the Bobcat mini excavators. This usually reason corrosion control exists other than pre- about real components that are used in buildinvolved diagnosing the cause, using CREO venting gas leaks is federal regulations. The ings today, and how they work. Everything to design multiple solutions, testing those de- code of federal regulations requires all gas from fire alarms to motors to heating traces. signs with prototypes, and then releasing an pipe buried after January 1970 to be protected I also learned a lot about how engineering companies work. Overall it was an enjoyable engineering change notice with the final de- from corrosion.” sign. I learned a lot of CREO, about manufac- “The corrosion department mitigates corro- internship!”

Clare Pankratz worked turing, excavators, and engineering concepts sion using a cathodic protection system. Cafor Apex Engineering applied to a large company. During my time I thodic protection puts a small DC current Group Inc. in the Biscompleted 26 projects, released 23 ECNs and on gas pipes using sacrificial anodes. Recmarck and Dickinson have hundreds of drawings with my initials tifiers transform traditional AC current into offices under the Waon them.”

DC which travels off the sacrificial anodes, ter Management Group.

Dawson Blakeslee in- through the ground, and onto the pipes. The “During the summer I terned at the CHS refin- basis of mitigating corrosion is by creating did construction obserery in Laurel, MT. “CHS an electrochemical cell between the anodes vation, construction inis a farmer-owned co- and pipes. This allows the anodes to corrode spection with supervioperative that is preva- instead of the pipes. Maintaining these sys- sion, calculation checks, system modeling, lent in both the agricul- tems involves taking voltages with respect to system mapping, and surveying. My fature and energy indus- ground at customer’s gas meters. These volt- vorite part of the summer was either maptry. The refinery that I ages show areas of low protection. I was in ping a North Dakota water district or modhad the chance to work charge of collecting these reads around Bis- eling a Wastewater Treatment Plant section for this summer produces primarily gas and marck and Mandan this summer. One prob- to check hydraulics of the manufacturer. I diesel, among other byproducts such as as- lem with CP systems is shorting the protective made an automated calculation sheet for the phalt and propane. Moving these large quan- current to customer houses. To eliminate this, soil cover allowed on pipelines which helped tities of oil, fuel, and waste requires lots of my boss and I used current mapping locating them accelerate the calculation process on power in the form of pumps, compressors, equipment to determine where possible shorts their pipelines.” fans, etc. This is where Electrical Engineers are.”

Mikayla Brackin worked for Stantec come into play. These large pieces of equip- “One fun thing we did/I learned this summer ment are often powered by electric motors, was replacing sacrificial anodes at a rectifier Consulting at their Mandan office this sumwhich of course require maintenance, plan- in Bismarck. There are 17 rectifiers around mer. ning, and design when it comes to new addi- Bismarck and the anodes need to be replaced tions in the refinery.” about every 30 years. To do this, a contractor “My summer consisted of working with dug a 160-foot deep 12-inch-wide hole where VFD’s (variable frequency drives), learning 10-foot anodes with long lead wires were how they function and can increase perfor- placed. The anodes are placed on top of each mance and efficiency of electric motors. Fur- other every 12 feet. Once the contractor bored ther, I aided in specifying a new VFD for a the hole, lowered the anodes, and backfilled new piece of equipment, as well as the depen- the hole, we had to connect the anode wires to dent infrastructure required (i.e. breaker and the rectifier. We then had to gather voltages in conductor rating according to the National the area to determine new better reads. It was Electric Code, space inside the MCC, etc). a fun experience to work with the contractors I also got the opportunity to help in future and see this process firsthand.” planning, by mapping out power panel loca- “Another cool thing I learned was an overview tions around the plant and updating the panel of how natural gas is gathered and distributed schedules which tell field personnel the dif- to customers. I learned a lot about pressure ferent circuits connected to the panel. I also regulator stations, gas fire power plants, and aided in cleaning up the company database odorization. Before this internship, I did not for electrical equipment to keep it up to date know that natural gas was odorless, and the and accurate for future use.” infamous smell was added by utility compa- “I was a transportation intern. The majority “As I am only entering my second year, this nies. It was cool to see all the work that goes of my work this summer was completed for was a major learning opportunity. I was ex- on behind the scenes to distribute gas safely the MnDOT to get all of their current culvert posed to safety culture within an industrial and efficiently to customers.” and pipe plans uploaded into an online syssetting, as well as being able to actually iden- “My boss mentioned that the interns in the tem so that all of the correct information was tify physical electrical equipment in the field past were only responsible for gathering volt- in one accessible location. I also got to help that I have learned about. I was introduced to ages around town, which is the more mindless with multiple public meetings and receive inthe interesting and complex concept of relia- and busy work task, and he did the short lo- put from the public. I improved my 3D modbility, and how especially crucial it is within cating, which requires more attention to detail eling abilities and worked more in the moda refinery. I was also introduced to how elec- and thinking . However, Aaron allowed me eling and design realm of transportation entric motors operate, as well as MCC’s (motor to short locate on my own. By the end of the gineering. I got to attend multiple public incontrol centers), and all that is housed inside summer, I found 5 shorts in Bismarck and put meetings and learn more about how to efto efficiently run large quantities of different Mandan. He was impressed by my ability to fectively communicate a design and the need

VOL.VI. . . No.1

for the improvements to the general public. I really enjoyed getting to see how many people in the Bismarck/Mandan community are very passionate about what is going on in their community. I think my supervisor and coworkers were impressed with my time management and effectiveness when completing tasks during the summer. They had mentioned they were glad that I knew when to ask questions if I didn’t understand and being able to contact the correct person to answer my question rather than just relying on one person for all of the questions. This really helped me to learn the importance of a team during design work and let me see that it is okay to ask questions at all points in your professional career.”

Peter Lane worked for the Department of Transportation in the Bismarck construction district. “I worked on bridge reconstruction in Glenn Ullin as well as the HMA overlay on the Bismarck expressway. I helped conduct material testing whether it be asphalt, concrete or soil. I also ensured road maintenance was being done in accordance with project planning and our state standard specifications (CSI for instance could never manage to not screw up traffic control). Besides learning how to do all of that I was able to pick up on a few aspects of road design like how asphalt overlays on concrete provoke blow ups due to the latter’s expanding and contracting with the weather.

I was able to impress them by not totaling my state fleet truck like all the other interns.”

Engineering Quarterly FALL 2023 when and how an app created an SR, include a new library to use Jira and rewrite the Visual Basic code to send requests to Jira. It was a fun challenge. I used tools like Postman for testing APIs, DBeaver to access our company databases, GitKracken for version control, and Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code (with the Vim plugin!) to write code. I also got to work with .NET applications, and helped to write a new web app in ASP .NET Core, which transfers files between our company and different banks.”

“A cool North Dakota Development: Applied Digital is building a data center in Ellendale, and MDU will be providing power. This data center will be used for cloud services and to run AIs, and when everything is running it will require 180 Megawatts of electricity!”

Gannon Steffes worked at Continental Resources in Oklahoma City, OK. “I worked as an Electrical Engineer Intern and designed a Mobile Power Unit (MPU) with the purpose of powering electric fracking equipment in Wyoming. The equipment is currently powered via low voltage diesel generators and with the MPU, we can power the equipment from utility power. I created the electrical design and mechanical assembly design for the MPU. Here is what I added to my resume: • Developed electrical one-lines with corresponding cable/conduit schedule.

• Carried out a 3ϕ AC Power Systems Analysis including load flow, short circuit, coordination study and arc flash hazard analysis via. SKM PowerTools.

• Developed mechanical assembly drawings and one-lines in AutoCAD LT. • Motor circuit sizing.

• Familiarized with NEC, NFPA 70, NFPA 70E, and IEEE.

I would say my most impressive accomplishment was the money saved. I was estimated to have a monthly savings of $133,000 with a 12-month estimated savings of $1,450,000 given the $150,000 build cost of the project.”

Primus apud Populum Hammum, Petrus Tribunus Plebis Leo Devick worked for MDU Resources this summer on their Business Web Development team. “I was in charge of a project to upgrade our old applications.

We have an older ticketing system called Security Request, but we are switching to a newer system called Jira.

All of our old apps are sending IT Support tickets to Security Request, and my job was to go through the web app’s code, discover

“Here is the project description I provided HR for more details: The Powder River Basin electrical distribution system (EDS) provides power to all our oil pads. However, utility power is not used during completions. Diesel generators are used in the place of utility power before we can get our own lines to the site. Given that we can extend our EDS to a new completions site, we can power our fracking equipment via utility power. The goal is

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to develop a design for a Mobile Power Unit (MPU) to power CalFrac e-blender skids from the utility power. Additionally, the MPU shall be designed to be able to power an individual pad if a service transformer fails in the field and designed to be used to power a micro-grid if need be. The design for this MPU shall include a load list, cable/conduit schedule, electrical one-line, and physical layout drawings.

A cost estimate analysis shall be given, and safety will be the top priority. Estimated cost savings per month is $133,383.”

Joseph Cunningham worked for Bobcat at the Bismarck Acceleration Center as a design engineering co-op on the Research and Development team. “Much of my work was related to transitioning gas-powered mowers to electrical power. Specifically, I came up with a way to attach the bagger system to electric mowers, as well as how to improve the efficiency of the centrifugal pump used to move grass from below the deck to the storage container on the rear of the mower. I really enjoyed being able to work with the variety of machinery available at Bobcat, as well as working with the technicians on the practical application of my designs. One way I believe I was able to impress them was how quickly I grasped the 3D modeling system that they use and used it to advance the projects I was given.”

Jack Hamond worked at KLJ Engineering in St. Paul. “I had the wonderful opportunity to get an engineering internship over the Summer.

The wonderful thing is that their main office is in Bismarck, and I will continue to work for them throughout the semester. I did things like making road alignments, updating CAD software (they were using Microstation but are switching to Open Road Design), Reviewed MNDOT Standards and Reviewed Plan Sheets, Made Plan-Plans and Plan-Profiles, doing material quantity estimations to find cheapest options for people, and doing site-visits. I learned some cool software, met some amazing people, and got to get familiar with how road design works.

They were impressed with my capacity to work on projects for a long period of time, my desire to learn new things, and the types of questions I asked in order to get through the problem.”

T. Paul Kariuki interned this summer with the Corporate IT Department at Presbyterian Homes & Services, headquartered in Roseville, Minnesota. They have over 60 locations, mostly in Minnesota, but also a few in Iowa and Wisconsin. “I traveled to 12 different locations this summer, notably in Hutchinson, MN; Oak Park Heights, MN; and Waukesha, WI.” “I worked with their Network Team. The team handles the network infrastructure for

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all PHS sites. The Network Team had a big project to replace a large chunk of their network infrastructure across multiple sites. It was a combination of a project planned for this summer and a postponed project from last summer (due to supply chain issues).

They needed help with provisioning, configuring and installing this infrastructure so they hired me as an intern. I configured wireless access points, network switches, network controllers, and uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs). We also traveled to sites and installed this equipment.”

“I learned a lot about how a network runs and how complex routing a single request can be, but also how fast it can be routed. I also had the opportunity to develop a Python script that automated some of our provisioning efforts and took our 5-minute process down to 12 seconds.”

Adam Richter worked at Northwest Contracting Inc. this summer. “I worked on the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, the Morton County Courthouse, and the First Western Bank & Trust.

I was an Intern Project Manager and helped the lead project managers with tasks pertaining to their projects. I am also the lead project manager for the Cathedral Bathroom Addition which will be done in approximately one month. I learned how to coordinate material and subcontractors for a project on a tight schedule. I also learned how to write change requests, change orders, and subcontract change orders. My employer was impressed by my ability to ask good questions and catch small details before they turned into big problems.”

Megan Achbach continued her career at Bobcat here in Bismarck this summer. “As the veteran intern on my team, I got to expand my role beyond my responsibilities from the past year. This meant that I was assigned as project lead for my design projects. Not only was I in charge of engineering design, but I also worked with coordinating between supporting teams, analyzing warranty data, investigating long-term financial outcomes, and ensuring that the project was progressing as intended. This summer I also was assigned to manage the wiring harnesses for an electric vehicle. This has been a

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super fun project because I get to learn more about high-voltage systems and navigate the challenges of electrifying machinery. A rewarding experience for me was helping my boss train and mentor the new interns on our team and on other teams!”

the team at Apex because I was always treated as a valued employee and not as just an intern. My team appreciated my attention to detail when reviewing plan and profile sheets, and my supervisor particularly appreciated that I was able to look back on ‘negative’ experiences and view them as positive learning Caleb Raes worked as experiences instead.” a design team intern Maya Wald worked at at PhiBer ManufacturNISC (National Inforing, located in Crystal mation Solutions CoopCity, Manitoba, Canada, erative) in the Mandan this summer. “A lot of office this summer. “For the work I did revolved most of the summer, I around the new stage helped with the develthe company was in. opment of the HR and PhiBer is experiencing accounting desktop softa huge demand for its ware which is mainly products, so they are beginning an aggressive expansion. I helped the engineering team to used by electrical and broadband companies. work around and find solutions for the prob- I learned so much about Java programming lems that resulted from the expansion. I also through fixing bugs and adding new features, helped streamline various manufacturing and particularly how the frontend and backend assembly processes. In addition, I managed of an application work together. A project a farm of 3D printers and was in charge of I worked on was changing the database lanthe post-processing and data logging of 3D guage used in the software, and I was able printing parts. I designed, prototyped, and to rewrite a process they were having trouproduced fitments and tools for assembly, ble with in the new language. They were and also programmed and operated a robotic impressed that I was able to figure that out which was pretty cool. In August, I switched welding arm.”

“Over the course of my internship, I learned to a web development team at NISC where lots of CAD tips and tricks and a ton about we are working on rewriting the desktop softusing 3D printers for industrial purposes. I ware to a cloud web platform. I have now also got an in-depth view of the manufactur- been writing code in Angular which has been ing process and how things are made, which a new and fun challenge. I am excited to also gave me a good insight into how some continue my internship throughout the school minor design changes can make a part easy or year as well!” almost impossible to produce. Learning how Joshua Franz worked to program the welding robot was a ton of fun for Bobcat over the past as well.” eight months. “I worked “They were most impressed by my ability for Bobcat as an emto work independently and my aptitude for bedded software engilearning new things. I had a great time, and neering co-op. I mostly am super excited to begin this school year and worked at their Acceluse the skills I have learned.” eration Center here in Ariel Jacobson worked Bismarck, ND, but I also got the opportunity with Apex Engineering to work at their studio in Fargo.”

Group in Bismarck, ND “My main responsibilities included designing as an Intern on the Wa- and writing C++ libraries and applications to ter Resource Team. “I simulate various elements of embedded sysworked primarily on ru- tems, updating and maintaining over twentyral design. I analyzed five C++, Python, and QML applications used drainage patterns and by the embedded software team, and updating delineated watersheds software and performing smoke tests on multo help determine what tiple Bobcat machines.” kind of improvements could be made to pre- “Some fun things I learned were how to opvent flooding on a client’s land. I learned how erate most of the Bobcat machines, the intrito evaluate the existing conditions at culvert cacies of CAN messages (particularly using crossings and propose new design options if the J1939 standard), and the best ways to apneeded. I was also exposed to urban design proach and design a brand-new project.” while reviewing plan and profile sheets for “My manager was particularly impressed with various projects, and I made a lot of maps how well I fit into my team’s culture, as well for project proposals and client meetings. as how quickly I was able to pick up on new I hadn’t taken any hydrology or hydraulics concepts presented to me.”

Tobin Cavanaugh worked classes prior to my internship at Apex, so this at ElectroImpact/EI this was a really beneficial learning experience for summer. “I got to write me. The best thing at Apex was my team. a program called Tracker One day during the heavy rainstorm, we just Commander, which is a drove out to see how well the existing infrasmeasurement and laser tructure handled all the water. We got a little tracker controlling prosoaked, but it was a blast! I worked closely with a few UMary graduates along with some gram. Sadly I was unable more experienced engineers who were always to finish it within the summer, but I am beavailable to answer my questions or explain ing invited back to finish it next summer! I new concepts to me. I enjoyed being a part of learned a lot about laser trackers, the Leica

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ATS-600 that frequented the adjacent desk that I used for testing has an advertised accuracy within 300 microns at 60 meters. I learned how expensive this stuff is too, the SMR (sperical mounted retroreflector) that trackers track cost easily thousands of dollars, even though they’re only a few inches in diameter. I also learned how to use the coffee maker they had and made some of the strongest coffee I’ve ever had in my life, which was a lot of fun. Tracker Commander though not fully completed, had a few really cool features that I’m proud of. Stuff like a customized treeview filesystem and inspector view, custom filetype exporting (was really just a renamed zip file), and a mainly stateless interface, meaning all operations were done in such a way that they were never permanent.”

Thomas Freas worked for a small company in St. Paul MN called Advanced Research Corporation. “They specialize in semiconductor device prototyping and x-ray detector manufacturing. I worked with sputtering machines, which deposit nanometer scale layers of metals onto silicon wafers or other materials, such as the beryllium used in x-ray detectors. I also worked on a project redesigning the control system of a plasma etcher machine, which is used to clear organic residue off of parts before sputtering.

I learned a lot about vacuum systems and the design of industrial control electronics. They were impressed by my ability to solve problems and repair things quickly. They hired me for an engineering job after I graduate this December.”

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written by professionals and then released to python3 ball.py the public. When you use a library you don’t and a window will appear on the screen with have to “reinvent the wheel” but, instead, you a ball bouncing around inside it. can use the hard work of someone else. You ball.py can then do complicated tasks by simply calling the library rather than having to learn how import turtle window = turtle.Screen() to write the code for the task yourself. This alwindow.bgcolor("black") lows one to do very complex tasks with only window.title("Bouncing Ball Simulator") def close(): a few lines of code as compared to other lanwindow.bye() guages. Obviously it is important for engiwindow.onkey(close, "q") window.listen() neers and computer scientists to learn Python pen = turtle.Turtle() since, due to its popularity, they are likely to pen.goto(-355,-355) pen.color("cyan") use it in their future careers. However, it is pen.forward(710) pen.left(90) equally important for them to learn more funpen.forward(710) damental languages like C and C++. Below pen.left(90) pen.forward(710) is a program using the Python Turtle library pen.left(90) which acts like a pen and can be used to draw pen.forward(710) ball = turtle.Turtle() fun designs. designs.py import turtle blah = turtle.Pen() for c in range(1,300,1): blah.forward(c) blah.left(55) turtle.mainloop()

The output looks like this:

P YTHON F UN

By TERRY PILLING

ball.shape("circle") ball.color("yellow") ball.shapesize(5,5,10) ball.speed(0) ball.dy = 5 ball.dx = 5 ball.penup() gravity = 0.1 while True: ball.dy -= gravity ball.sety(ball.ycor() + ball.dy) ball.setx(ball.xcor() + ball.dx) if ball.ycor() < -230: ball.dy *= -1 if ball.ycor() > 230: ball.dy *= -1 if ball.xcor() < -280: ball.dx *= -1 if ball.xcor() > 280: ball.dx *= -1

Python is a great language for getting quick and sophisticated results and our freshman engineering and computer science students learn it along with Java, C, C++, and Bash. The latter languages are more difficult languages to learn that Python, and it takes much more time and effort to get impressive results. However, with those languages, the student ends up with a much deeper knowledge of what is going on “under the hood” allowing them to solve problems that non-engineers cannot solve. From our point of view, education is not about getting the correct answer in the easiest possible way, the point is to understand problems and methods at a deep level.

I have taken it from a book written by a 13 Python is a widely used high-level pro- year old boy named Tejasvi Vashishtha. He gramming language which allows both writes, “I am 13 years old. I like to make Python turtle graphics codes, so I thought to object-oriented publish all my Python turtle graphics codes. and proceduThis book My Python Turtles is a book that ral programhas fantastic Python turtle graphics codes. It C IRCUIT P ROBLEM S OLUTION ming.

Python consists of many codes that will help you unprograms generderstand what we can make from python turally are smaller Vs = 21 V tle graphics. I have worked very hard on this than other probook, so I would love if you can read and enIs = 6 A gramming lanjoy my book.” guages and the Here is a screenshot from another program L OGIC P UZZLE S OLUTION indentation rewhich was not taken from any book: quirement of the language, makes it more readable than many other languages.

Python has now become the most popular programming language in the world (surpassing Java in recent years). In fact, it is now even integrated into Microsoft Excel so that you can use Python programs in your spreadsheets.

Python is powerful and simple to learn.

You do not need to be an engineer or a computer scientist to learn Python. Artists, historians, and even children can learn to write programs in Python.

The reason for its ease and popularity is I wrote it to simulate a bouncing ball under the vast number of libraries that have been the influence of gravity. Simply type in the written for it. Libraries are resources that are following code and run it in a terminal using the command

Time 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00

Professor Room Course Dr. Gauthier 104 MAT 211 Dr. P.K. 107 PHY 252 Dr. Kelly 217 EEL 206 Dr. Garcia 222 ENR 280 Dr. Pilling 210 ENR 304

Contact Information To comment on the articles, or to inquire for more information about our engineering program, we welcome you to email: Engineering@umary.edu Next issue: February 2024

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