Purdue News
Purdue News
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April 27, 2001 Purdue seniors put their design work to the test for the trackA senior design project at Purdue University has taken 34 students from the classroom to the racetrack. A team of students unveiled a functional Formula One race car body today (Friday, 4/27) that will be driven against 140 other cars during the Society of Automotive Engineers' skills competition and time trials May 16 in Pontiac, Mich. The project team, made up of seniors majoring in either mechanical engineering, aviation technology or visual and performing arts, was given the task to design the car body in a simulated industry experience from purchase order through product delivery. The class was taught by a 25-year project engineering veteran and was designed as an exercise in real-world project engineering in which people from many different disciplines must collaborate for the finished product. Erika McPheeters, a senior in mechanical engineering from Greenwood, Ind., led today's presentation and says the interdisciplinary approach to the project made for interesting class discussions and gave her an insight into how project teams will work in industry. "This is the closest classroom experience to the real world I have had," McPheeters says. "As a group we had to decide what processes would be the best, what design would look the best and what would function the best for this car." Steve Borse, a senior in mechanical engineering from Indianapolis, was the project engineer, or team leader, for the class. He says leading the interdisciplinary team has been challenging but very rewarding. "Dealing with the different personalities and objectives from the three schools has been tough at times," Borse said. "But the classes we've taken since we were sophomores have been based on teamwork, so we were used to working with different people. "It's going to be a bit easier for us once we get into industry to rise a little quicker than someone else may," he says, "just because we've had this experience under our belts. We had to make this work since our clients did not have a backup plan if the car body was not completed on time, or if it did not work." Funding for the project came from the School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue alumni and many different corporate sponsors. All 34 students are candidates for graduation May 11-13.
Video information: B-roll of the body being prepared for paint, 3 audio cuts from Erika McPheeters, 1 audio cut from Steve Borse and b-roll of the car unveiling and the completed project.
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