Full MME Newsletter - Washington State University College of ...

Making Room for More
New Equipment Provides Big Impact for Future Engineers
Members of the School of MME advisory board received a tour of lab equipment upgrades.
new data acquisition system, laser scanners, and a 3D printer
A are some of the improvements that mechanical engineering
students will soon see, thanks to a $1.82 million Washington state
appropriation to the WSU School of Mechanical and Materials
Engineering.
“Engineers are extremely important to the Washington state
economy. They are the ones who are going to solve global challenges
in energy, the environment, and health,” says David
Field, interim director of the School of Mechanical and Materials
Engineering. “Our state legislators understand that for our students
to be trained to meet these global challenges, state-of-the-art equipment
is more important than ever.”
WSU’s engineering programs will be seeing a dramatic increase
in the number of engineering students in the next few years. Facing
increasing industry demand for engineers and computer scientists,
the state legislature allocated $3.8 million each to WSU and the
University of Washington to increase capacity in engineering and
computer science programs. The initiative aims to address a shortage
of Washington state engineers and will result in a more than 30
percent increase, or a total of 425 new students, in WSU’s engineering
programs. With support from this initiative, WSU mechanical
engineering programs in Bremerton and Everett are also expanding,
which allow place-bound students to improve skills that are needed
in industry.
But, to grow the programs, one of the limiting factors has been
lab space and equipment.
Approximately half of the $1.82 million appropriation will go
to update labs in Pullman, while the other half is split between the
WSU mechanical engineering programs in Bremerton and Everett.
The Bremerton and Everett funds will support development of lab
capabilities on those campuses and should enable the students to
complete their studies without traveling to Pullman for the laboratory
portion of the curriculum, says Cill Richards, professor in the
School of MME who is overseeing the laboratory fund committee.
In Pullman, labs for undergraduate classes are being upgraded
and modernized. The laser scanner and 3D printer will serve five
classes and additional elective courses. New equipment, including
lathes and mills, are being added to manufacturing laboratories. A
new internal combustion engine test stand will serve five courses as
well.
“Laboratory classes are the current bottleneck in the mechanical
and materials engineering programs,” says Bob Olsen, associate
dean of undergraduate student services. “Some equipment used
for these classes is older than the students in the courses, and, in
some cases, time for hands-on laboratory and design experiments is
limited by the amount of equipment available.”
Important changes in data acquisition are also being made in the
labs to catch up with the 21st century.
“The new data acquisition will allow students to access data from
experiments via their own computers using a web browser,” said
Richards. “They can also use an app if they have a smart phone.”
The intent is not that students can do the labs everywhere but
that instructors can have students in a lecture class run an experiment
together to supplement lectures, she said.
“Much of the equipment not only upgrades what is already in the
lab, but enhances the laboratory experience and strengthens the
connections to material in lecture classes,” she said.
“One of the real strengths of MME’s program is the hands-on
experience that our students get,” she added. “This equipment will
strengthen the quality of our program.” ❚
School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering | Spring 2013 3