Thursday, December 09, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

DESIGN CLASS: Imaginations run wild in UNLV class

Engineering students count on creations to make grade

UNLV engineering students Aleem Wali, left, Nathan Quigley and Mark Chatterton display their auto-leveling wheelchair, a prototype constructed for their senior design class. Their creation was judged Wednesday during a senior design competition at UNLV's College of Engineering. Photo by K.M. Cannon.

Design it. Build it. Make it work.

Those were the three imperatives UNLV engineering students followed in developing year-long projects for a required senior design class.

The products of student ingenuity, ranging from the playful to the practical, went on public display Wednesday at UNLV's College of Engineering.

One team developed a golf ball players can track electronically with a handheld device.

Another team designed a wheelchair prototype that automatically compensates for a terrain's pitch and roll.

Though their designs were hampered by shoestring budgets, students eagerly talked about available technology that would refine their creations and make them practical for mass production.

"We were trying to solve something," said UNLV mechanical engineering senior Aleem Wali. "We wanted to design a product that serves a purpose."

Wali teamed with fellow seniors Nathan Quigley and Mark Chatterton to construct an auto-leveling wheelchair.

Part of the inspiration for the project came from Chatterton, whose grandmother used to ask to be rolled down ramps backwards in her wheelchair, so she wouldn't feel like she was falling out of the chair.

The team demonstrated to a panel of judges on Wednesday that they had succeeded.

The design, which incorporates a sensor under the seat that sends out signals prompting automatic adjustments when the chair encounters bumps and inclines, is still a little rough.

Because of the size of the leveling device, the chair is almost five feet high. But their budget, about $800 with parts from the engineering department and some personal investment, didn't allow for the purchase of the smallest mechanical parts available.

It took seven months of design, construction and frantic work for the three to see some real results, Quigley said. But he and his fellow designers were happy with the result and the passing grade it earned them.

"We were told that we graduated today," Wali said.

Engineering seniors and golf enthusiasts Justin Veilleux and Andy Luong also earned a passing grade for their senior design project.

Inspired by a golf ball that lights up, making it possible for players to visually track it during twilight hours, the two friends took the idea a step further and designed a golf ball that could be tracked with Global Positioning System technology.

Most golfers have the equivalent of a Palm Pilot, Luong said, so why not create a ball that emits an electronic signal that could be displayed on a handheld device?

"We both like golf and we both wanted to test our technical skills," Veilleux said.

Like the wheelchair team, the golf ball creators struggled with a tight budget, which is why their golf ball is the size of a tennis ball.

But that's surmountable, said Luong, who pointed out that electronic innards that would fit into a golf ball are currently available, for the right price.

Instructor Bill O'Donnell, who teaches senior design, said the projects are intended to give students a taste of what will be required of them as engineers.

They'll have to work in teams, he said, and they'll have to complete projects on budget and on time.

During the semester, engineering design teams completed a total of 12 projects, which are eligible for prize money once the judges' evaluations are announced later this week.

"There've been a lot of sleepless nights this week," O'Donnell said of student efforts to complete their work.