Seymour graduates lead the way in innovation

The assignment sounded simple: fix a problem.

But first, the 11 students in teacher Bob Sexton's engineering and development class at Seymour High School had to come up with a problem to fix.

And it just got harder from there.

How do you stop mice and other rodents from chewing through pipes and wire? How do you make your car defrost faster? And how do you keep lotions from spilling and leaking?

Those were just a few of the problems students tackled this year.

In the end, they were able to present prototypes of products they had designed and created to solve those problems.

Recently, the students completed their projects and presented them to the public and a panel of local industry professionals from the engineering community. They were critiqued on communication skills, professionalism, research and testing of the prototype.

Participating students were Eric O'Mara, Brittany Green, Mitch Hackman, Brent Hall, Lukas Carpenter, Jesse Kiste, Dylan Howe, Craig Ziegler, April Engleking, Ryan Vierling and Patrick Bryant.

For the past four years, the students have been a part of the school's Project Lead the Way program - a series of five courses designed to help prepare them for pursuing a college degree and career in the field of engineering. Graduating with the class of 2008 on June 1, the group was the first class to complete Project Lead the Way.

"These students are now ready to venture forth with the abilities they have acquired," Sexton said.

Those abilities include skills in problem solving, communication, teamwork, science, mathematics, technology, economics and management, all of which they applied in developing their final projects.

From brainstorming ideas and researching possibilities to designing a solution and creating a product, the students learned how to think and act like an engineer, considering all aspects of solving their problems.

"As they move through a problem-solving cycle, they consider not only the scientific and mathematical requirements of the problem, but also the social, economic, environmental and ethical effects and issues," Sexton added.

The projects
Poisonous insulation

When he had to come up with an idea for his project, Kiste said the possibilities were endless.

He eventually decided to go with the problem of rodents chewing through pipes and wires.

His solutions to solve the problem?

To make the pipe stronger or to create a poisonous insulation.

"In order to make the pipe stronger, I would have to replace all of the piping in a house or business," he said. "With that in mind, I chose the poisonous insulation."

Unable to melt the insulation and the rat bait together, Kiste went another route and just combined the two materials.

"I knew it would work because the rat bait is proven to kill rodents and the foam insulation is proven to control temperature," he said.

However, Kiste did not test his prototype for a couple of reasons.

"I didn't want to harm any rodents in my project and I would not know how to make the rodents eat it anyways," he said. "If I would have had more time, money and resources my prototype could have been better."

Messy lotions?
No problem

Classmates Bryant and Howe partnered up to find a more convenient and discreet way to apply lotions and medication to the skin.
"During our research we have brainstormed over some ideas such as creating a smaller medication or concealable lotion so no one notices what you are applying and medicated wipes," Howe said.

They decided to go with the medicated wipes.

Howe said the solution came to them one day in class.

"We noticed someone passing around breath strips that dissolve in your mouth," he said. "And then it hit us that medication could be taken in the same way in the form of a wipe that dissolved on the skin. It would be easy to use and there would be no excess lotion or big packaging."

After figuring out what they wanted to do, they had to concentrate on how they were going to do it.

Bryant said they were able to combine medications with a thin wax like paper. The testing of the product was successful.

"Through testing this we have found out that the solutions work perfect and that the medical hand wipes do work and dissolve with just a little water provided with the package," he said.

Faster defrosting

Being the only two girls in the class, Green and Engleking knew the pressure was on to come up with a great idea and build a working prototype.

"We wanted to build a window that would heat up by itself," Green said. "We first wanted to have tubes that would go throughout the window but we had to change the idea because the tubes cost too much and would be hard to get through the glass unless we built our own windshield."

Undeterred the girls came up with a simpler method.

"We changed our idea to pumping a defrosting liquid through a hose and have holes in the tube to where it would spray the liquid onto the window," she said. "It would take less time to clear the ice off the car window than sitting and letting the defrost do it."

The final product was successful during testing, even though they did not have enough funds to install the pump in a car, Engleking added.

"The tubes run along the side of the window and go to the top of the window and have small holes in them to build up the pressure," she said. "The liquid runs down the window instead of it spraying up."

A windy solution

Carpenter and O'Mara decided to pair up to address the growing energy crisis and the nation's dependence on oil.

Using a brake rotor, spindle, high powered magnets, wire and a propeller, they were able to create a wind mill that could be placed on top of buildings to generate electricity.

"The world will be needing to find new ways of creating energy other than using fossil fuels and this is a small step in the process," O'Mara said.

In the end, they were able to make a functioning disc alternator to generate electricity.

"For the testing, I could spin the rotor by hand and cause a small amount of electricity," Lukas said. "This can be increased by using a lathe to spin the rotor at higher speeds."

The prototype should be able to generate 1000 watts of electricity with ease, he added.

"It can be used as a wind generator by putting it in the air and using a propeller," Lukas said. "It would be most effective in windy cities and can be used to charge batteries and for powering equipment."

More comfortable grilling

Growing up in the restaurant and catering business, Hall decided he wanted to tackle a problem close to home - how to make grilling a more comfortable experience for the cook.

He paired up with Hackman to create a unique cooking utensil that would make grilling and cooking easier on the hands and wrists.

"With our parallel compressing tongs, you can grill all you want without getting a cramped hand," Hackman said. "We thought such an endeavor would be a fun, resourceful and original project."

"We researched conventional tongs and found that they use a hinge system requiring most of the gripping force from the index finger and thumb," Hall added. "We decided that by changing this design, we would make this device easier to use for a wide range of consumers."

They quickly learned the simpler, the better.

"Though many of our drawings seemed like good ideas at first, the complexity of each proved that we needed to use the design that used as few parts as possible," Hackman said.

In the end, they used springs and brackets to ensure the tongs' stability.
"By use of a spring and bracket system, more power and efficiency can be obtained through in-creased comfort and ergonomics," Hall said. "The use of our new tongs by people with small hands should enhance the usability and control. With our new design, we believe we can give all restaurant workers a bit of relief from everyday nuisances."

Revolutionizing gaming

As fans of the shoot em up video game series Halo for Xbox 360, Vierling and Ziegler wanted to create a more advanced controller that would react faster and more accurate to the player's movements.

"The game controller will be the most advanced and helpful tool in the gaming industry," Vierling said. "It can do all that the Xbox controller can do and more using laser technology to aid the gamer to defeat his or her enemy."

The main features of the gun-style controller are it's lightweight, laser sight, thumb stick and button layout, trigger, head strap and stalk, Ziegler added.

Using an MP5 military gun as a model, the boys started to build their controller, welding joysticks and buttons to a computer motherboard chip and assembling a laser sight to the controller's frame.

One issue they wanted to address in their prototype was the trigger.

"We made our trigger system very loose, meaning it is easy to double and triple tap and it will effectively work," Vierling said. "This helps the gamer to gain an advantage of firepower."

After completing their controller, the boys spent four days testing it out using the game Halo 3. They were able to test for speed, accuracy and the feel of the controller.

"We found out that it was very easy to use and made the gamer very involved with the game," Ziegler said. "It really made the user feel like they were in the game. Also the speed of fire and movement increased. This helped to gain an advantage within the games that we played. These minor increases were very small but yet still effective."