Mechanical engineering seniors explain their award-winning Capstone Design projects to judges during the annual exhibition. Photo by Kevin Bain/Ole Miss Communications
OXFORD, Miss. – Three teams of University of Mississippi engineering students took top honors at two separate regional competitions recently.
At Tennessee Technical University, two teams of UM mechanical engineering students placed first and second in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Student Design Competition April 21-23. The UM teams won over teams from 47 other colleges and universities from across the country.
Five graduating chemical engineering majors competed in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Mid-South Meeting and Design Competition held on the Oxford campus April 11. UM defeated teams from Christian Brothers University and Mississippi State University.
“Our team was (composed) of a diverse group of students with various interests moving forward,” said Alexis Arnold, a senior chemical engineering major from Benton, Arkansas. Other team members are Olivia Cooper of Thompson’s Station, Tennessee; Sherman Jones of Laplace, Louisiana; John Hornor of Helena, Arkansas; and Cary Roy of Moss Point. “Two of our members are pursuing medical degrees in the future, while the rest of us are pursuing more traditional chemical engineering positions.”
After a brief explanation of rules and procedures, the teams were presented a troubleshooting problem in a mock meeting.
“The problem involved an increase in reactant lost to wastewater, which resulted in the altered feed to a distillation column,” Arnold said. “We were provided with a process description, block diagram, column diagram and component data.”
Chemical engineering design team members are (standing, from left) Sherman Jones, Alexis Arnold, Cary Roy, John Hornor and Olivia Cooper. Submitted photo
For 10 minutes, the teams alternated asking clarifying questions before moving into the workroom. Each team worked 15 minutes to produce a solution to the problem before presenting to their “bosses” (judges).
“Our team determined that in order to maintain proper water separation, the temperature of the column needed to be decreased,” Arnold said. “Because this was the simplest and most cost-efficient solution of the three teams, we were chosen as the winners of the competition.”
Members of the team were delighted both to win the competition (including the $400 prize) and to have gained practical experience.
“Dan Hayes revealed that this problem was based off one presented to him when he was new to industry,” Arnold said. “It was truly fun to apply concepts we have studied in college to this real-life problem.”
The ASME Student Design Competition provides a platform for ASME student members to present their solutions to a range of design problems – from everyday household tasks to groundbreaking space exploration. Each team is required to design, construct and operate a prototype that meets the requirements of an annually determined problem statement.
“The 2017 Student Design Competition challenges your technical design skills to create a robot that is fast, strong and agile,” said Matt Lowe, Machine Shop supervisor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “Your team must build a remotely controlled device to compete against others in five different events – a robot pentathlon consisting of climbing stairs, lifting weights, throwing a tennis ball, hitting a golf ball and sprint in a 1 meterwide lane.”
The robots and all necessary hardware to support them, including the weight to be lifted, must fit into a 50 by 50 by 50 centimeter box. Scores from each of the events were combined to determine the overall champion.
“Our students accepted this challenge head-on and invested many hours in engineering solutions to each of the tasks at hand,” Lowe said. “Starting out, four teams were selected to compete against each other with the top two being selected to represent the University of Mississippi at the Student Design Competition in Cookeville, Tennessee.”
First Place Overall UM team members included Joseph Jones of Walls, Jordan Hilderbrand of Yazoo City and Melissa Wright of Gulfport. Second Place Overall team members were Alex McGee of Brandon, Caleb Davidson of Atlanta, and Kenton Wong of Germantown, Tennessee.