American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
ASME | Multimedia | Traveling T-Shirts | 2007 IMECE | Acknowledgements
ASME at Seattle University operates as an ASME student section (for 2009-10, it is not being recognized as a club). It was one of the most active engineering club on campus. In the past few years, the club participates in the following:
Upcoming event are posted on the bulletin board outside ENGR 415. Due to the limited space and the hilliness of Seattle, the club focuses on the utility class HPVC, often adding daring design features. The name of the SU vehicles are the "Hawkenheimers." Due to the demand from senior design, our HPVC project is a club activity run by underclassmen (juniors, sophomores, and freshman), with juniors lead.
The 2008 entry "Leonard G. Hawkenheimer" is our first attempt at front-wheel drive. It had an inverted pendulum 4-bar linkage rear-wheels that allow the delta trike to lean into turns, but was plagued with drive train issues that despite best efforts, was not fully resolved by the time of the race. The vehicle took 1st place in design and performed well enough to win 1st place overall. The 2008 HPVC West was hosted by UNR at Reno, Nevada.
Developing Technical Skills
Working on the ASME project is a great way to learn new skills, such as machining and welding needed for fabrication. Non-technical skills such as organization, planning, people-skills needed for interacting with donors are also important. Technical communication skill is a key element needed for the written report and oral presentation, a substantial portion of the competition. Well-documented design, analysis, and testing of an innovative vehicle (that performs) makes HPVC an excellent engineering project.
More than Bike Building
Students developed strain-gage, signal conditioning, and data acquisition system to monitor stresses of critical components using a hand-held portable computer in real time. Aerodynamic tests on scaled models were also conducted with an educational wind tunnel to determine the optimal fairing configuration. We have also crash tested a full-size prototype at 30-mph at the PACCAR Technology Center to understand the behavior of our rollbars under impulsive load.
Professional Development
It is sometimes difficult to land your first engineering job or internship (the one you really wanted) due to lack of experience. Participating in an engineering competition helps to mitigate that. Employers are looking for someone who work well with others, has drive and initiatives, has some technical ability and experience, can communicate effectively, and can beat a hard deadline and accomplish a measurable result. The ASME HPVC is all of those things. Our students often recall stories from their HPVC experience at job interviews. The ASME HPVC event has been ongoing for 25 years, so the ME community is well aware of it. Many hiring managers participated in the event (or similar projects) as students and remember them fondly.
Social Activities
The club also have social gathering at pizzerias and pubs around campus, especialy after a long day working on HPVC. ASME also attend classic movies as a group when they are shown on the big screen at the Egyptian Theater just north of campus (such as "The Big Lebowski" night in 2007). For 2008-9, the club will host special social events for our Japanese mechanical engineering exchange students from Kogakuin University while they are in Seattle.
T-Shirts
To project a team image while in competition, the ASME club members design T-shirts and makes them based on the number of presale order. The 2008 team wore cardinal T-shirts with "Seattle University ASME (ME in hand gestures)" in front, and the slogan "We put the ingenue in ingenuity" and bike tools on the back. These words, we think, are related to "ingenieur" (French or German) which means "engineer" in English.
(Left) B. Hensley '09, making sure the rider is enclosed by all the hard points on the 2008 vehicle. (Right) Reno, NV. Site of the 2008 ASME HPVC West.
(Left) 2004 Outreach activities at Inavale and Mountain View elementary schools, Corvallis, OR. (Right) 2004 J. Cotter '05 and D. Engebretsen '04 talking to kids.
Publicity
Sometimes, our adventure find their way into local newspapers and TV News programs. Our adventures to OSU in 2004 was covered by Corvallis Gazette-Times (same story was carried by Albany Democrat-Harald) and Associated Press.
(Left) Holding the vehicle together while riding. A Lybarger '07, 2005 (Right) G. Bratzel '09, 2007. Background: world's largest wind tunnel (inlet on the right) at NASA Ames. Pictures 1, 2, and 3.
(Left) M. Reha '09, on Leonard G. Hawkenheimer in Reno, NV 2008 (Right) V. Templora '04 at the start of the race in Corvallis, OR. 2004 (Photo courtesy of Corvallis Gazette-Times, we can't take picture this good)
B Hensley '09 riding upwind on a runway at Reno-Stead airport, 2008. Note the trunk between the back wheels needed for utility class vehicles.