Five Grand Valley State University engineering students placed in the American Society Of Mechanical Engineer’s
2012 District B Student Professional Development Conference and Student Leadership Seminar in Toledo last week.

The GVSU team — comprised of students Matthew Freundl, Caitlyn Hurley and team leader Steven Quirk — took second place in the district design competition, which will send them to internationals in Houston in November. Sixteen teams competed in the district conference, and it was the third year in a row that GVSU teams qualified for internationals.

“Honestly, it feels great to be able to go to nationals in Houston this year,” said Quirk, who is also the vice president of GVSU’s own ASME chapter. “My team spent a lot of time working on our vehicles and its nice to see that all that hard work paid off.”

The teams were required to build four vehicles that followed the theme of “energy diversity.” Quirk’s team decided on battery power, wind power, potential energy stored in a wound rubber band and a carbon dioxide canister to power their vehicles and ultimately lead their team to a third-place victory and a $300 prize.

“As for (if I am) nervous, I would have to say a little,” Quirk said about nationals. “The District competition was tougher than most people thought it was going to be, including us. Our competition was on of the first, most others will be later this month or early next month so we have no idea who or what we will be up against in November when we head to Nationals.”

Product design and manufacturing seniors Jacob Hall and Alexander Hastings won third place in the district design competition, and two other design times placed in fourth and fifth place. In addition, student Kathryn Drouillard won third place in the poster competition.

“All the teams members from all teams did a fantastic job and I believe everyone deserves recognition for such an accomplishment,” Hall said.

Wendy Reffeor, the design competition’s chief judge, Wael Mokhtar, West Michigan senior section chair and Nael Barakat, ASME District B chair led the GVSU teams into the district competition with Sung-Hwan Joo, the ASME student section advisor.

“I think we’ll do really well, actually, in the national competition,” Joo said. “It’s in November in Houston. We are sending both teams again, and I think they will do a great job. The quality (of their work) was way better than other teams.”

Quirk said nationals will have the same theme as the district competition; only the challenge will lie in finding ways to make impressive improvements.

“We plan on making several modifications that make the vehicles run straighter and faster, as well as maybe replacing one or two,” Quirk said.

Quirk attributes the team’s success to support from the Padnos College of Engineering and Computing as well as the advisors and professors that organized the trip and encouraged students along the way.

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