The Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at West Virginia University will host its annual Senior Design Expo from noon to 2 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 8. The expo will be held in the ground floor atrium and corridor of the Engineering Sciences Building in the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources on WVU’s Evansdale Campus.

Students have been displaying their designs and projects for more than 25 years at the expo, which looks to publicize the work of students and attract potential investors to commercialize their products. The event is free and open to the public. Students will be on hand to answer questions about their projects.

“The goal of the Lane Department capstone program is to expose our seniors to the real world before they get there,” said Ramana Reddy, professor of computer science and electrical engineering. “This enables them to gain important time management, organizational and entrepreneurial skills.

The 27 exhibits on display will include a wheel chair controlled by thoughts, a website geared toward helping WVU students stay healthy and an industrial automation system.

One of the exhibits on display features a concept for an electro-mechanical drum filling station for Eagle Manufacturing in Wellsburg. Ryan Trimmer, a senior electrical engineering major from Follansbee, West Virginia, has created a design proposal for the company, including expected costs and outcomes.

“Eagle Manufacturing produces industrial safety drums that are currently tested manually,” Trimmer said. “The electro-mechanical drum filling station would accurately fill drums with specific weights to test for quality control.

“During my internship with Eagle this summer, we discussed the need for a machine that could test every type of drum to reduce the hours of manual labor they currently allocate to testing,” he said. “After our first few weeks in senior design, I felt that this class was a great opportunity to create this automated machine.”

Eagle Manufacturing imposed explicit conditions on the project that must be met before the system can be implemented including hardware specifications, safety guidelines and the importance of repeatable accuracy.

“We will be showing all the various components that will have to be implemented into our design at the expo,” Trimmer said. “Next semester, we will learn how to properly interface the components to each other and hopefully actually build the filling station.”

-WVU-

bmd/12/02/14

CONTACT: Mary C. Dillon, Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources
304.293.4086, Mary.Dillon@mail.wvu.edu

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