Students Tasked with Designing Calvin’s Solar Farm
On September 17, students in ENGR 333 were already presenting their initial findings to their client, CFO Dirk Pruis. The students were introduced to the project two weeks prior.
It’s the first day of class, students had just taken their seats, and literally within 30 seconds, Professor Matt Heun spoke these words to his Engineering 333 class.
“The project this semester is we are going to design Calvin’s solar farm.”
After a few-second pause, one student said, “sweet.”
A few seconds later, another student started to clap, which spread slowly throughout the room. The room seemed filled with nervous excitement, something acknowledged multiple times over the course of the next hour.
An Intentionally Designed Daunting Task
“From where you sit right now it probably seems quite daunting,” said Heun.
Heun knows it’s daunting, because that’s the point. His teaching pedagogy is to use creative problem-based and team-based strategies to assist student learning. It’s something he brought to Calvin 20-plus years ago. “I teach that way because I have a background in aerospace where we are always doing something new, always challenging ourselves to take a step that’s never been taken before,” said Heun. “That’s what we want with education, young people full of enthusiasm and energy, paired with older and wiser practitioners who provide guidance. That’s a cool combination.”
An Invested and Supportive Community
Heun is one of those advisers, but he spent a portion of his first class introducing students to a number of other guides, from director of facilities Jennifer Ambrose to electronic shop technician Chuck Holwerda to the client for this project: Dirk Pruis, the university’s chief financial officer. Interim president Greg Elzinga was in attendance to emphasize the importance of this work.
“There are all these journals that talk about the future of higher education, and one of the biggest challenges you’ll see in some of those are campus infrastructure and energy for the future,” said Elzinga. “So not only is this project important from a learning aspect for all of you, it’s also important to the future of Calvin for some very practical reasons, but also for our creation care commitment as a university community.”
“This is who we are at Calvin, how we think about creation care as Christians. We have a responsibility to the environment, and that’s who we are at our core. We signed onto that at Greg’s level a couple of presidents back,” said Pruis, referring to the 2017 signing of the President’s Climate commitment.
Lots of Questions and A New Twist
As Heun continued to outline the project, students asked questions about the weekly rhythm, the scope, and the details needed in project deliverables.
What was also revealed to the students in Heun’s class is that one of those deliverables would be needed by mid-semester. For the first time in the 20-plus years Heun has been creating novel projects for his students, the two sections of his ENGR 333 classes are partnering with both a structural design class in the engineering department and a physics class, to help answer the question.
“At the middle of the semester, we have a deliverable for the physics class and the structural class to provide information so we can all work together,” said Heun.
So, there was no time to waste. Heun’s first assignment due the evening of the first class was for the students to apply to be part of one of four teams who would each be digging deep into a particular type of mounting option for the solar panels. They were expected to present their initial findings two weeks later.
Diving In
“I think it’s a big project and I’m very excited about the prospect of working with other students from across departments and across concentrations,” said Rory Marco, a senior engineering major (mechanical concentration) from Sacramento, California.
“I’m honestly really excited because it can be easy in school for projects to just feel like it’s busywork or just examples, but this feels like it’s actually helping people and our university, which is amazing,” said Aiden Ehmann, a senior engineering major (mechanical concentration) from Durham, North Carolina. “I think I’m just excited for working with the administration for deliverables and all the aspects of creatively approaching this project.”
While the students are presenting their work and receiving feedback from the client throughout the semester, their final presentation with their recommendation for Calvin’s solar farm will take place in early December.