Oddly enough, as much as I want to graduate, I don’t really want to be an adult either. I now have to worry about things like health care, insurance, finding a place to live, using a relator, how to move across the country instead of across town, buying real furniture. It doesn’t seem scary, but annoying! I know that I am very capable of completing these tasks, but they are incredibly mundane.

It’s nice to take some time this year to look back at my college life and see the growth in myself, the changes in my priorities, and the changes in my attitude in these four years. So while the future seems slow in comparison, I’m interested to see what changes in the next four years.

Our project is to design a slow sand filter for the nonprofit organization 1000 Jobs/Haiti. Our filter can be manufactured in Haiti and all materials can be use locally. This will help 1000 Jobs reach its goal of not only creating and sustaining jobs, but the filter itself will provide clean water to many people who do not have access to it.

The filter is in a concrete housing. The varying layers of gravel and sand make the filter bed. This bed not only removes particulates, but over time a biological layer grows in the top layers of the filter bed which filters out harmful bacteria. Slow sand filter designs have seen up to 99.9% removal rates in e.coli and other coliforms.

The first picture is me grinding down some of the welds on part of the mold. The second picture is the finished concrete mold that can be reused for multiple filters.

The most memorable part of the trip however, was visiting the engineer’s playground: the USS Midway. It is a retired aircraft carrier turned museum anchored on the San Diego bay. The carrier was decommissioned in 1992, and is now staffed with volunteers who toured on the Midway.

It was a really great piece of history, but on top of that there are lots of things for an engineer to play with. It was a self-guided tour, and we took full advantage of pressing every button, turning every valve, and flipping every switch within arm’s length. On the flight deck, there were planes and helicopters everywhere. You could climb in the pilot’s seat in many of the aircraft. (I may or may not have cut a line of anxious 8-year-olds on a field trip to get in the pilot’s seat.) The USS Midway is a must see for anyone in the San Diego area.

The competition was sponsored by Boeing and Goodrich. They made a wind tunnel with speeds ranging from 10 to 15 mph. The competition was based on the performance of the airfoil (greatest lift/drag ratio) and presentation skills. Each competitor had a PowerPoint presentation of their design process and anticipated results.

It was a really great experience to talk with these students and watch their design process. Other competitions included a water filtration competition and a toothpick bridge competition. All of the students really impressed me with their designs.

The most recent surprise was in my senior design project. The project we selected is with a non-profit organization called 1000JobsHaiti. The project is to design a water purification system and manufacturing process that can be created in Haiti using other Haitian materials with the goal of creating jobs around it. Well the other day I found myself in a microbiology lab doing E. Coli testing on filter water, something I would have never thought I would find myself doing as a Mechanical Engineer, but I can’t say it wasn’t interesting.

This element of surprise is certainly something that stretches well beyond the academic arches as well. In the field there is always some process that is broken, needs improvement, or redesigned. As a person who becomes bored very easily, I am glad I chose to become an engineer.

There are multiple ways to handle this. One way my friends and I have chosen to do it includes using Google Calendar. The calendar allows you to post your schedule and then add contacts that are allowed to view it. My schedule has a handful of different schedules all color-coded which allows me to see who is free during the day.

This has allowed us to set up a weekly lunch where almost everyone can make it to stay in touch. It also helps for impromtu gatherings and the occasional bit of humor; all of which makes the dreary winter quarter less discouraging and more fun!

My team, Haitian Filtration, is working with 1000 jobs/Haiti. They focus on creating jobs for people in Haiti by using resources only found in Haiti. We are designing a sand filter and sending the manufacturing and operating instructions to our customer. Our project will improve the quality of life for Haitians (most of the country does not have access to clean water) as well as providing jobs.

We are halfway through the year. We have built a prototype to test factors such as flow rate and water purification, as well as to determine the type of maintenance necessary for our design. Below are images of prototype.

We are beginning to design subsystems for our final product. Our final project will be a concrete housing, filled with gravel and sand (filter material), with a diffuser plate. We are including an optional activated carbon extension as an additional filter. The sand filter will remove the particulates and biological impurities, while the activated carbon will improve taste and color. All of our materials for the final product will be available in Haiti; no materials will be imported. Our goal is have a low cost filter that can provide clean water for a small community, such as a school. I’m enjoying not only using my engineering skills to solve real world problems, but also working with my group and customer, and feeling like I’m making a difference. Senior design is very time consuming, but well worth the effort.

To monitor Team Haitian Filtration’s progress and successes, see:
https://sites.google.com/site/ohioumehaitianfiltration/

For more ME Senior Design projects, see:
http://www.ohio.edu/mechanical/design/Projects/TeamsandProjects_2012.html

Well, it's happened, I finally made it back. After the first few weeks of classes with mid-term exams looming, it seems as if I never left. While it was nice having a job and not having to worry about doing homework, I am enjoying being a student again. While at times there is more stress involved with long hours of homework, the schedule is more of a pace I was looking for.

The majority of my time is spent going to class and working on homework. It is very rewarding finishing homework assignments and projects for classes. The social atmosphere is more comfortable as well. The friends I left six months ago are still here and haven't missed a beat. I've begun to realize that I feel home in Athens, concluding that the re-adjusting that I thought I was going to have to do, turned out to be as simple as unpacking.

A lot of engineering students decide to go immediately into the workplace rather than moving on to grad school. Many entry level engineering positions only require your undergraduate degree. I expect that my career path will be a little difference. The summer between my sophomore and junior year, I learned about Boston Dynamics project, BigDog. I got so excited about this project, that I knew I wanted to work in the robotics field, which most of these jobs required a Masters Degree, at the minimum! So even though going through the whole application process is long, cumbersome, and stressful, I know that it's what I want to do.

For more on the BigDog project:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OX-VXfFAuY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXI4WWhPn-U

I started at Ariel Corporation in Mount Vernon, Ohio in June of this year; one week after spring quarter was over. Ariel's business is primarily natural gas compression, but they also make compressors for other applications. The range their compressors fall into is 85-10,000 horsepower, which is the horsepower it takes to drive them.

My current position is Field Service Engineering Co-op. In the field service department, there is a large amount of customer interaction. When an operating unit goes down or starts to show problems, a field service engineer is assigned to deal with the problem. Often times then they make a trip to the field, where ever the unit is, to deal with the problem.

Now back to what I was doing in North Dakota. I was on a trip with one of the full-time engineers at Ariel. We spent ten days repairing a unit that had a bearing failure that misaligned the frame. With the help of mechanics from the packaging company, we put in a new frame and crankshaft to get it up and running.

On the way home, we flew out of Rapid City, South Dakota, which happens to be were Mount Rushmore is found. Since we were already there, it seemed silly not to visit the monument!