The College of Engineering Expo at Oregon State University is an annual showcase of senior design projects from across the engineering disciplines. This year, nearly 600 undergraduates exhibited 200 projects, ranging from a segmented radius solar collector that will significantly improve energy collection to an ordinary cell phone that can detect gamma radiation with a built-in light sensor.
Besides creating a hands-on experience for students, the expo demonstrates the importance of industry-university partnerships, as evidenced by the more than 50 projects sponsored by companies such as HP, Georgia-Pacific, Intel, and Microsoft Research.
The mutual benefits of such partnerships are well documented. In a publication for the 2013 IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference, researchers presented a case study of a company working on a government-sponsored robotics project for a local school.
The authors concluded that the partnership was an opportunity to promote interest and excitement around STEM education. More specifically, project sponsors gained fresh insights on a particular engineering challenge while students experienced real-world applications of principles they learned in the classroom.
For John Damon (’84, B.S. Business), senior vice president of manufacturing and engineering at Oregon Freeze Dry, Inc., the advantages of sponsoring an expo project were obvious. Damon worked with three undergraduate students to help Oregon Freeze Dry cut down on changeover time when switching between different fruits used in a Costco product line.
The students were presented with a process that took more than 12 hours. To reduce the changeover time, students produced process flow maps, Gantt charts, and spaghetti diagrams — all lean manufacturing tools — to organize the data and highlight improvement opportunities. They provided Oregon Freeze Dry with Job Aid, a standardized set of work instructions for operators to reference during changeovers.
Damon said the students produced professional and easy-to-implement suggestions that will help improve efficiencies and the bottom line.
“I have been in manufacturing for 30 years and have been taught or taught process flow and Gantt charts a number of times,” Damon said. “The students did an outstanding job. I have never seen anyone do it better.”
Although some companies partner with engineering students to improve a process, others benefit by assessing the commercial viability of a product. That was the case for Steve Potochnik, co-founder and senior technology developer for Trillium FiberFuels, an Oregon State spin-off. Trillium has been developing an enzyme production process to turn agricultural waste into ethanol fuel. The company hopes to produce a particular enzyme called xylose isomerase on a commercial scale, which could lead to 20 to 40 percent increases in ethanol yields.
“The value that I gain with this partnership is very concrete,” Potochnik said. “The students are taking something that we’ve only done at a beaker level and are scaling it up by a factor of 10. Not only that, but they are using a more practical technique.”
Preston Pallante, a student team member of the Trillium project, said that working with industry provided him with a broader context. “You are doing something for a greater purpose,” he said. “Specifically, we’re trying to produce xylose isomerase, but it’s so that Trillium Fiber Fuels can increase ethanol yields and fermentation for biofuel production.”
For fellow teammate Malak Abugrain, the project helped prepare her for graduate school and an eventual career in bioengineering. “What grabbed me was being in the bio realm of engineering,” she said. “Being able to run a bio-reactor is a really good thing, because all the techniques that we’re using can be applied to different labs. The skills are very transferable.”
An additional benefit of industry-university partnerships is an opportunity to enhance professional skills for both parties. Gavin Hills (’10, B.S. Computer Science), a software engineer with Garmin, worked with students to develop a path-finding algorithm to help pilots plan an optimal flight route. Besides facilitating with the technical dimensions, the project required Hills to define the problem, set deliverables, and provide mentorship.
“It gave me an opportunity to switch gears and use more of an organizational type of mindset and collaborate with people, as opposed to just doing the technical side,” he said.
Student team member Eric Anderson appreciated the opportunity to collaborate with Hills and develop an algorithm that could benefit a company — a different learning experience than what is typically found in the classroom. “With schoolwork, when it’s done, it’s done,” said Anderson, who is finishing a MECOP internship and will begin work with Tektronix in January. “With this project, it has a life beyond what we do with it.”
Hills agrees that industry-sponsored projects with a real client require a unique skill set, which can not only enrich learning, but better equip students for their future careers.
“When you’re doing a project yourself, or to fulfill requirements for a class, you take a certain approach to it that may not focus on the long-term maintainability,” he said.
“Working with a client that is apart from your current coursework can provide an opportunity to face new challenges and learn from them. It ends up being a good situation for everybody.”
The partnership provided an opportunity for Hills to scope out engineering talent. “We have a strong relationship with Oregon State, and the partnership continues to give us potential employees as well as an outside perspective,” he said.
— Abby P. Metzger
I find this activity most gratifying since it was part of my mission when I came to head ECE at OSU in 1972, This led to grad degree programs in the Portland area along with joint research projects (at graduate & undergrad levels), joint advisory committee with industry and a Tektronix Chair that led to hiring John Owen, who in turn played a major role in this cooperation. Keep up the excellent work with continued success.