Students Bring Engineering to the Ohio State Fair

Ohio State University College of Engineering Moonbuggy Team Leader and welding engineering student Isaac Kennedy enjoys a ride on the Moonbuggy with an Abe Lincoln look-alike at this year’s Ohio State Fair.Attendees of this year’s Ohio State Fair can experience elements of The Ohio State University’s College of Engineering through four interactive exhibits staffed by teaching assistants in the First-Year Engineering Program and engineering student volunteers.

Designed to encourage interest and draw attention to engineering, the exhibits enable fair attendees to:

• Test launch a nylon ball on a student-designed and -built rollercoaster model. Many students in the introductory freshman engineering courses experience this project, which consists of designing, building and testing a robust and stable miniature rollercoaster made of PVC piping for the structure and tubing for the track. Students use solid mathematical analysis and modeling before assembly is begun. At the end of the quarter, teams compete against each other and present their designs.


• Operate an advanced energy vehicle by laser remote control. This new design and build project is slated to become part of the main freshman engineering design project in fall 2012. Student teams use advanced energy concepts and energy management to successfully address a real-world transportation scenario. As part of the project, students design and program small, autonomous, motor-powered vehicles that are propeller-driven along an overhead monorail system. The students present their designs to their peers and to the public at a final exhibition and also hold competitions to test the operation of the vehicles.


• Manipulate an underwater robot in a test aquarium with assistance from the Underwater Robotics Team. Ohio State’s Underwater Robotics Team members describe how they will apply engineering skills and techniques learned in the academic environment to design and manufacture an underwater remotely operated vehicle to compete in the annual Marine Advanced Technology Education Center International competition in spring 2012.


• See welding engineering’s Moonbuggy project. Find out what it’s like to sit on a human-powered vehicle designed by a team of welding engineering students. As part of an annual NASA competition, the buggy carries two students over a 0.7-mile lunar terrain-like course that includes simulated craters, rocks, lava ridges, inclines and lunar soil.

The interactive exhibits are at the Ohio State Fair from 9 am to noon and 1 to 4 p.m. now through Aug. 7 as part of the Technology and Engineering Showcase in the Youth Center by the fair's main Gate 1 entrance. The showcase is sponsored by the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Technology and Engineering Educators Association.