The Autodesk Technology and Engagement Center, certainly one of CSUN’s latest services, was brimming with exercise and innovation on May 1, as seniors within the Andrew J. Anagnost College of Engineering and Computer Science displayed the “capstone” initiatives they’ve labored on with college advisers for the previous yr. The annual Senior Design Project Showcase options stay demonstrations by college students, who additionally create shows and oral shows to showcase their ideas and the way they create them to life.
Their innovations and shows are judged by a panel of business consultants, together with alumnus Andrew Anagnost ’87 (Mechanical Engineering), Hon.D. ’24, president and CEO of Autodesk, one of many world’s main design and make expertise corporations. Last yr, Anagnost demonstrated his dedication to his alma mater by donating $20 million to the college. In recognition of his unwavering assist, at the request of CSUN President Erika D. Beck, the California State University Board of Trustees accepted the renaming of the college’s engineering school in his honor.
Houssam Toutanji, dean of the Anagnost College, famous in his welcome message that this expertise is a chance for college kids to indicate they’re able to make significant contributions inside their chosen fields.
“These projects represent the culmination of a journey where students have applied their knowledge, creativity and determination to address real-world challenges with impressive ingenuity and craftsmanship,” Toutanji mentioned.
There have been greater than 40 scholar improvements on show all through ATEC and the school’s school rooms, together with a fire-resistant construction, a stadium, and a wastewater therapy facility created by groups of civil engineering and development administration college students; a capsule reminder and monitoring system for sufferers taking a number of medicines, designed by pc science college students; and a family compact compost blender created by engineering administration expertise college students.
Senior mechanical engineering majors Victoria Bures and Leo Haroutoonian labored collectively on the 16-person group behind the S.M.A.R.T. Hawk — a shape-morphing, synthetic red-tailed hawk. Bures led the design sub-team and Haroutoonian led the avionics sub-team. Both are transferring on to graduate engineering applications. Haroutoonian mentioned that the work ignited his curiosity in aerospace expertise.
“I got a lot of flight testing experience and very good experience on the technical side of things, creating a control architecture for our model,” he mentioned.
Bures mentioned she realized a fantastic deal about manufacturing and dealing with a bunch.
That manufacturing expertise included “working with composites, carbon fiber and making our first cambered (curved) feathers,” she mentioned. “But also, what I took away was actually working with the team and the three sub-teams to make one coherent model that actually flies.”
This yr’s showcase grand prize winner was the group behind CSUN ISAM (In-Space Assembly and Manufacturing), made up of mechanical engineering and pc science college students. The group developed an autonomous rover for future NASA missions on the moon and future Mars exploration.
For more information concerning the Senior Design Project Showcase, go to the Anagnost College webpages.