D E P A R T M E N T
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D E P A R T M E N T |
The following feature story appeared in the campus publication Mosaic in March, 1996. Although some of the courses, students, and faculty members referenced in the story may have changed in the meantime, it still provides a full and accurate picture of the Engineering Department. For the most current course information and faculty listing, we encourage you to visit the department's homepage.
Engineering Department
An unusual liberal arts setting stimulates an ambitious, wide-ranging engineering program
In the secret location of the engineering department's robotics laboratory (clue: it is not in the Mathematics, Computing and Engineering Center), Professor Dave Ahlgren, department chair, shows off the robot designed by engineering students participating in the third annual International Robotics Contest, to be held at Trinity in April. By the time Trinity's robotics team is through, this computerized device on wheels, about one square foot in size, will be able to navigate independently through a wooden single-story model house, locate which room has a "fire" (a lit candle) in it, and extinguish the flame in what the students hope will be record time.
The robot is just one example of how Trinity's nationally and professionally accredited engineering program engages students in hands on experience, collaborative research, and the creation of something that really works-all within the larger framework and philosophy of a liberal arts education.
Engineering students may opt for a Bachelor of Science degree, choosing a concentration in electrical, biomedical, computer, or mechanical engineering; or a Bachelor of Arts degree, which confers a strong mathematical, computer, and applied science background in preparation for a career in a related field, such as business or architecture.
Building teamwork
Engineering at Trinity focuses not just on imparting the mathematical, analytic, and design skills but also on the interdisciplinary and real-world issues of environmental impact, cost-benefit analysis, and ethics. Teamwork is fundamental, beginning with the freshman seminar.
Jennifer Cooper '98, a sophomore, worked on the robotics project last year, particularly on the mechanical aspects, while other students addressed the electronics and programming. "There was a lot of communication," she says. "You learn to work well with other people."
"A major thrust is being able to deliver and share knowledge," says Ahlgren. Besides collaborating in small groups, students often present their work to the class and write papers that are sometimes intended to be journal-article quality. These excellent ways of learning are not unique to the engineering department, admits Ahlgren, but they also have the added advantage of representing the way most engineers function in industrial and corporate settings.
A real world connection
"There's definitely a correlation between engineering at Trinity College and engineering in the real world," attests Sean Ruhmann '96, who says that guest speakers in various types of engineering jobs are a valuable part of senior design seminars. Engineering internships also offer students a chance to work and interact with professionals, and the Trinity Engineering Advisory Committee, which includes a number of representatives from the industry, keeps engineering faculty informed and holds an annual career day for students.
UTCEI
The recently launched United Technologies/Trinity College Engineering Initiative (UTCEI), designed to encourage capable young women and minority students to study engineering, teams up Trinity students, faculty, and graduates who are now professionals at United Technologies with local high school students. The groups take part in science fairs, career days and academic workshops, in addition to developing individual projects and furthering research at Trinity. Jennifer Cooper, who liked the challenge of writing up lab experiments for her high school students to work on, has enjoyed communicating by e-mail with her project mentor, Corey Lewis, an engineer at Hamilton Standard. "How much responsibility do you have?" she wants to know. "What is it like to go out into the real world of engineering after college?"
The culmination of an engineering education at Trinity is the senior project which, in Ahlgren's words, is generally "the development of real things-stuff that actually has to work." Laura Lawson '96, for example, has been working on a solar electricity device. Timothy O'Shea '96 has developed a self-contained underwater buoyancy-controlled camera.
State-of-the-art facilities
Such projects are made possible by the engineering department's state of-the-art facilities, including laboratories in the areas of electrical circuits and systems, digital systems, mechanical systems, materials science, electrophysiology, and digital signal processing. The unique Optical Diagnostics and Communications Laboratory was established through a $200,000 grant from the Keck Foundation. The department, students, and faculty routinely receive equipment and research grants from NASA and the National Science Foundation. Trinity even has a rare atomic force microscope. "Small schools don't have them," points out Assistant Professor Christine Broadbridge. "And at larger universities students don't have access to them."
Another thing that students at large universities don't enjoy as standard fare is the personal attention from faculty who often collaborate with students on research. The engineering faculty is, according to Sean Ruhmann, "always available" and "knowledgeable in a wide range of areas."
Ahlgren, for example, does research and teaches in the areas of digital and analog electronics and computer modeling, while Broadbridge's expertise is in optoelectronic and electronic devices and materials science. Joseph Bronzino, Vernon D. Roosa Professor of Applied Science, focuses on electrophysicology, neuroscience, and electrical engineering. The work of Assistant Professor John Mertens is in thermodynamics, heat transfer, gas dynamics, and engineering materials. Associate Professor Taikang Ning's areas of expertise include digital processing, feedback control systems and analog and digital communication theory. Assistant Professor Joseph Palladino specializes in physiological modeling, mechanics, biomechanics, and aeronautics.
Of the educational institutions to which Trinity compares itself, only one other, Swarthmore, has an accredited engineering program. It may be unusual to have an engineering program at a small college where a large percentage of students major in such areas as history, English, economics, and political science, but Trinity's engineering faculty ardently believe in the value of an engineering degree that is fully integrated into a liberal arts philosophy of life and learning-and in the benefits that a broadly based engineering program contributes to the entire liberal arts community.
"Our engineering majors are required to take eight courses in the arts, humanities, and social sciences," says Ahlgren. And he's terribly serious when he adds, "And we hope that students in other majors will take eight math and science courses."
- Leslie Virostek