Calvin Senior Engineering Students Design Solutions

April 5, 2006 == MEDIA ADVISORY

The recording device designed by five Calvin College senior engineering
students is nondescript. But when completed the small, plastic device, which
measures just four by nine inches, will store 10 hours of professional-quality,
digital recording.

More importantly, the heat-resistant and humidity-tolerant device will replace
the jumble of equipment currently used by Epic Partners International to record
native speakers telling Bible stories -- which the organization then uses in
its evangelism work.

For the Calvin students designing the device was both an academic exercise and
a real-world experience.

"It was exciting to do something technical but also something for the kingdom
of God," says Michael Moselle.

He, along with Bryan Klingenberg, Eric Lundy, Josh Jarrard and Scott Heupel
created the device for their 2005-2006 senior design project at Calvin. Their
team name is "Microphone Missionaries."
 
And while the Microphone Missionaries were thrilled to put their engineering
skills toward such a concrete conclusion, the Calvin professors in charge of
the annual senior design projects are quick to point out that not every project
needs to have such an obvious religious or faith-based objective.

Engineering professor Steve VanderLeest says simply, yet emphatically: "We see
every project as kingdom work."

The senior design projects at Calvin are the products of a yearlong capstone
course, the culmination of an engineering student's four years of study.

The student teams (representing various groupings of mechanical; electrical
and computer; civil; and chemical engineering students) work for two semesters
to tackle a real-life design quandary in an array of different areas.

This year the kingdom work represented by the engineering projects ranges from
a duck catcher to a cell phone muter, while geographically the projects include
the banks of the Grand River and the banks of Lake Tonle Sap in Cambodia.

"Engineering," says VanderLeest, "is solving real-life problems and producing
technology for people."

The finished senior design projects will be available for public viewing at an
open house, to be held from 4:30 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 6 at the Calvin
engineering building. A formal banquet for the engineering majors follows,
during which they will present their projects.

For the whole list of projects see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2005_06/senior_design.htm

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Received on Tue Apr 4 23:15:05 2006