WKU News & Events

December 13, 2001

WKU Engineering Program Pumped
Up About Engine Project

Bowling Green, Ky. - Western Kentucky University's engineering department was buzzing with activity Wednesday afternoon.

About 40 mechanical engineering students along with faculty members and other guests packed room 203 of Science and Technology Hall for the 2001 Wobbler Windup.

What's a Wobbler Windup? It was the end of a semester's work for Mechanical Engineering 101 but also a beginning for Western's new engineering program.

"This was a beginning of project-based learning in our engineering program," Dr. John Russell, department head, said after watching the students demonstrate their small air-powered engines. "That's what we want to be known for and as we become known for that, we'll become very successful."

Project-based learning activities like the Wobbler Windup make engineering real for students and give them the skills necessary for engineering careers, Dr. Russell said.

"The creative process stimulated by this is excited and will bear wonderful fruit someday," he said.

Joel Lenoir, the James L. "Bud" Layne Professor of Mechanical Engineering, said the course has taught students the art of engineering along with the science of engineering.

Students were given the materials (aluminum and brass) and a budget ($18.75) and had to design and fabricate the small engines. The engines are called wobblers because the cylinder block wobbles as compressed air is pumped in and out.

"One of the biggest pluses for the students is they learn that they can do the work and they can get it done," Lenoir said.

Sophomore Johnny Martin of Franklin, who won an award for most original design, agreed. "I’ve never done any machining in my life," Martin said.

Martin said he learned how to take the engine from the design stage to production. "These guys have really put a lot into it," he said of his classmates. "It was a challenge for everybody."

But Martin and other students said the benefits of the project-based, hands-on learning environment are worth the challenges.

"That's why I'm here," said Scottsville freshman Shane Montgomery, who won the award for best aesthetics. "I think Western's program is better because we're doing this."

Chris Byrne, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, agreed. "The greatest benefit from the projects is clearly the excitement that the students feel when completing the design/build process alongside their peers.

"To have a tangible outcome from hours of effort is a very rewarding experience that many engineering students do not get until their senior year at best," he said. "To have built a device from raw materials with your own ideas and design in your first year is very rewarding and encouraging."

Kathryn Hess, an Auburn sophomore, and Jessica Scott, a Slaughters freshman, said the freshman-level course will better prepare Western engineering students for the real world.

"Most mechanical engineers don't get to do this," Scott said. "They design it but they don't build it. Now we have an advantage.

"We have experience now that we can use."

For more information, contact Joel Lenior at (270) 745-6858. More WKU news is available on the World Wide Web at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via E-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.