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Engineering
program gains recognition with national award A national award presented to a group of TCU students should help further the growth of the engineering program, said Patrick Walter, senior design lecturer. “It ought to help engineering recruiting,” Walter said. “We’ve grown steadily every year, and we’re growing now.”
Design News magazine presented the College Design Engineering Award to a group of 14 engineering students for a project that was completed last May, at an awards dinner in Chicago March 19. ANSYS, Inc., the award’s sponsor, gave $10,000 to the winning students to split and $10,000 to the university’s scholarship fund. TCU’s
engineering program started in 1992, and the first class graduated
in 1996. There are now 131 engineering majors, up from 74 in 1996. According to Design News the project consisted of the design of a machine used on the assembly line at Alcon Laboratories, an international producer of eye-care products. The students were challenged to create a more effective method of testing the sterility of saline solution in vacuum-sealed bottles. The students designed a machine that successfully tested the bottles at 100 percent accuracy at a rate of 56 bottles per minute, according to the article. Senior engineering major Brian Erickson said the accomplishment and award were milestones for the engineering department. “The program’s the same caliber it’s always been,” Erickson said. “It’s just finally reaching out to the country and getting some national recognition.” Walter, whose students completed the project, put the award into perspective by pointing out some of the other awards given by Design News at the awards dinner. The Engineer of the Year award went to Gerson Rosenberg, who has spent the past 30 years developing an artificial heart at Pennsylvania State University. “That’s a pretty prestigious group to be in,” Walter said. “It’s pretty nice to be a young engineering department and be in this kind of situation.” Sam
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TCU Daily Skiff © 2002 |
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