Fran Romano
Designer and Engineer
EGR121: Engineering Innovation
EGR121 is a intro to mechanical engineering course that has students dive into hands on design projects. The course is taught by Dr. Rebecca Simmons whose passion and enthusiasm make the class an exciting learning environment. Students are pushed to explore various mechanical movements and electronics components.
Marvel themed ball launcher toys I designed for the courses's Happy Meal Toy Project
Reflection
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For the certificate program, I chose to go down the technology and design pathway. I chose to take Engineering Innovation with Dr. Simmons because this course is the perfect stepping stone for my pathway. The class pushed me to think outside the box and attempt mechanical solutions that I didn't know existed.
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One project in the class was a design challenge with the goal of retrieving a tennis ball. The idea was that the teams for two needed to design and build a device that remained within a 1 square meter space at the start of the time and at the end of the time. This design challenge is very interesting because you need to store potential energy and use it efficiently and effectively to retrieve the ball. Teams brainstormed things from catapults to rovers. Our team used a two part solution with a wind-up car that would launch to retrieve the ball and a pulley system that would bring the car and tennis ball back to the 1 square meter boundary.
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Our solution was an epic failure...
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We did not retrieve the ball and I think the pulley system I designed fell apart. Although it was embarrassing at the time, it was a great learning opportunity in demonstrating the importance of testing and design iteration. We had gone through few design iterations before our final showcase. Moving forward I understood the value in testing and root-causing failure modes in order to make appropriate changes to reach a successful solution. This course taught me ways to explore out of the box solutions and the tools necessary to try them out. I am very thankful for this class and the learning environment the Dr. Simmons was able to create. I improved my CAD skills, increased my exposure to electronics, and explored new mechanical movements.