A student plays notes on a digital piano as a peer looks on, trying to discover more about each keystroke he makes. As part of their senior electrical engineering project, seniors Erik Formella, Calvin Hopkins and Charlie Powell spend several hours in one of the Halligan Hall labs every day, experimenting with how quickly a computer can recognize when someone plays a note on the piano and attempting to make the computer process this faster.
This project is one of about 15 current projects by senior students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, according to the department's chair, Jeffrey Hopwood.
"I wish I was a student so I could do it," Hopwood said. "I just have to stand back and watch them, but it looks like they're having a lot of fun."
Students in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department and the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department have access to special teaching labs where they can learn how to operate the tools they will need to be able to operate after graduation.
To receive accreditation as an engineering school, the School of Engineering must include lab courses in their curricular requirements for undergraduate students, according to Kyongbum Lee, associate professor and chair of the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department.
"There are certain areas of engineering where things can be more theoretical, but, for the most part, the expectation of an engineer is that they can understand the theory and can put it into practice," Hopwood said.
While lab time requirements and prerequisites vary among the school's departments, underclassmen typically receive assignments to complete specific tasks in the teaching labs in order to learn the basics, Hopwood said.
As students progress through their four years, lab assignments become more open−ended and culminate in a student−created senior project, Lee said.
According to Lee, lab assignments are a major time investment for students but well worth the experience.
"You get to do something with your own hands, create data and be able to report on it," Lee said. "We take it very seriously and we certainly commit ourselves a hundred percent."
Hopwood and Lee said they have typically heard requests from students for more opportunities to practice hands−on work during their undergraduate years.
"They're probably the most interesting thing we do because you get to use different tools you wouldn't get to use otherwise," junior Natalie Salk, a mechanical engineering major, said.
"Last year, for example, we used liquid nitrogen, which is pretty sweet because I've never seen that before. If you dip a finger in that, your hand is toast," Salk said. "It's probably the most exciting part."
Since many students request additional time in the teaching labs, the Department of Electrical Engineering will offer a junior design project next semester to give students earlier opportunities to have an open−ended design project.
Starting for the Class of 2016, this class will become a part of the required curriculum for electrical engineering majors, according to Hopwood.
"We want to have an environment where they can exercise their creativity, come up with ideas and test them out to design actual, working systems," Hopwood said. "We're trying to have students approach a problem from different ways: theoretically, practice and explaining it to someone else. It helps cement concepts, making it tangible."
According to Lee, the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department and the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department recently updated their labs to help teach students how to work modern equipment they will have to use with future employers.
Renovations to labs for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, will not be completed until Dec. 19, Professor and Chair of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department Kurt Pennell said in an email to the Daily.
Once open, the labs will foster a collaborative working environment, according to Pennel.
"Students said they wanted to see more state−of−the−art materials in the labs, so we've tried to accommodate that in the last couple years or so and people have responded very positively," Lee said.
