It might be easy to forget sometimes, but engineering isn’t just aircraft and bridges. It can encompass everything from seawater desalination to robots for stir frying food.
Those projects and many, many more were on display when the College of Engineering hosted its 14th annual Project Symposium and Showcase on May 30.
“No matter where you look, you will see the positive impact of Cal Poly Pomona’s engineers in our society,” Engineering Dean Mahyar Amouzegar said to those in attendance. “This is why we are one of the best engineering programs in the nation.”
Around 130 student teams from all departments within the college gathered in buildings 9 and 17 to show off the fruits of their labor this year. A select few of those projects were chosen to appear in the Project Showcase, which was held later in the BSC.
During the showcase, three teams were selected for first-, second- and third-place prizes, with the first-place team receiving a $2,000 prize, and second- and third-place receiving $1,000 each.
First place this year went to a pair of engineering technology students who designed a new mountain bike frame that can accommodate larger wheels. The team, composed of Jake Holdridge and Antonio Garcia, hopes that the frame will allow cyclists to gain higher speeds and more easily clear obstacles. Their design includes two novel features that might even be patentable.
Second place went to a team whose project aimed to improve the performance of certain pharmaceutical compounds and third place went to a team that designed high-capacity, fast-charging capacitors as an alternative to batteries for a solar-powered plane.
To see the entire list of projects and presentations, visit http://www.cpp.edu/~engineering/activities/docs/program-2014.pdf