In its first six years of existence the Student Design and Experiential Learning Center (SDELC) gradually grew to ten teams and over 400 students. That ten-team level has stood since 2006, but now we have a sudden growth spurt with the addition of two new student-run organizations. In late 2011 the Hydrogen Design Solutions and iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machines) teams joined the center to take advantage of the administrative, technical and financial support that has helped the other teams succeed.
Hydrogen Design Solutions will develop an annual paper that addresses challenges that face the hydrogen community at large. The 2012 contest focuses on how to use local resources to produce biogas that fuels a tri-generation system that produces heat, hydrogen, and electrical power for eventual installation on a campus.
iGEM, which works with synthetic biology techniques, is the first non-engineering group to operate within the SDELC. The team has been on campus since 2006, and they work in an international collaboration to create an open gene library of standardized biological parts for genetically modifying organisms. Just last week the S&T iGEM student chapter's work was featured on the S&T website home page. They'll do almost all their work in Schrenk Hall, just two blocks from the Kummer Student Design Center, while getting their organizational help from the SDELC staff.
Stay tuned, gentle readers, there are more design teams on the horizon. Wonder if it has anything to do with the wonderful new Kummer Student Design Center that opened just 7 months ago. :)



Things pretty much dropped off after dead week, final exams and winter graduation, but a few workshops were still humming along as if staffed by Santa's elves. The Concrete Canoe Team held their annual "mix fest" (more on that in the next story) right in the middle of exams, and the Formula SAE team hatched their new chassis just before Christmas.




Now the rig has adjustable height, is easily broken down into manageable sections, and has big honkin' WHEELS! That means it can be rolled into the composites lab for sanding/staining, and concrete dust and splatter will be all but eliminated! Christmas in November!
S&T EWB president Grace Harper is just gushing over the success of the EWB-USA Midwest Regional Conference, held at S&T this past weekend.
But what happens when a team has the proverbial (and common) "Oh, Crap!" moment? They run screaming to their faculty advisor and beg for technical help. Yes, each team has an official staff or faculty advisor who provides the professional evaluations that tell the team "No, that'll be fine", "Have you considered this?", or "Yep, you guys are REALLY up a creek this time!" Advisors are like outside technical consultants who have the authority to take a team member's access away, or worse yet, rescind a team's credit cards.


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