Budding engineers help create living garden at Fontana Labs

Each year, Elliot Ross (welding engineering ’69) and his wife, Carolyn, dedicated hours of work to their treasured flower gardens. College sweethearts since they were Ohio State sophomores, their shared pastime provided a much-needed respite from the hustle and bustle of busy careers and raising a family.

When a rare lung disease stole Carolyn after 50 years of marriage, gardens became a place where memories of her flourished and would ultimately inspire a one-of-a-kind intersection of engineering, architecture, agriculture and art.

An idea is planted

Carolyn exuded light, energy and life—the same ingredients she shared with her precious children and homegrown hydrangeas. But the depth of her prolific flower beds did not speak to Ross until after Carolyn passed away. Many discussions about how best to memorialize her blossomed into the concept of a living garden. The engineer in Ross translated that idea into a living sculpture, and he envisioned a unique structure of illuminated flora representing his wife.

Giving back by paying forward

A long-time supporter of engineering education at Ohio State, Ross envisioned a creation that blended characteristics of Carolyn with opportunities to enrich the lives of students at the university. Education would be the thread that pulled it together. A former Columbus City Schools teacher, Carolyn dedicated her career to educating children, and the couple credited Ohio State with many blessings, including educations that led to successful careers and the ability to give back. They previously established an endowment that sustains six engineering undergraduate students.

Ross introduced the idea of a tribute garden to the College of Engineering by suggesting that students from multiple disciplines design the garden with guidance from faculty. Materials Science and Engineering Professor Peter Anderson spearheaded the project during the initial phase. He identified project owners, disciplines and roles to translate the abstract into completion. Students from the Knowlton School of Architecture worked with students from materials science and engineering, agriculture and art to create design options. Collaboration among disciplines took off as students discovered the creative process and benefits of cross-functional collaboration.

Ross, a member of the MSE External Advisory Board, was wowed by the interaction and creativity of students during meetings.

“College is a hands-on learning experience, and the beauty of this project was to learn how to make something that works while collaborating with people with very different skills and viewpoints,” he said. “They approached the project holistically just as I do with my work in industry. To get stuff done, I involve people from every part of a business—engineering, operations, finance, HR. Every successful project is the sum of its parts. Engineers especially must be creative, have intellectual breakthroughs, and pragmatically produce things that work with the help of others.”

The structure will reside in the American Electric Power Foundation Atrium within Mars G. Fontana Laboratory, a $59.1 million, 124,000-square-foot facility that opened in August 2020 and is home to the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) and Biomedical Engineering. Michael J. Mills, MSE chair and professor, said the building was designed “upon the premise that interpersonal interactions lead to new ideas and new directions in research and learning”. A fitting location for Carolyn’s tribute.

The greater purposes of the tribute garden are to help attract students and faculty to Ohio State and to inspire people to think outside the box, Ross added. “The tribute garden will be beautiful, dynamic and enhance the lives of people who work, study and walk through the building.”

Down to business

Anderson assembled student capstone and faculty teams in fall 2019. Those from MSE, Knowlton School and the Department of Design were charter members. Students from agriculture and natural resources joined the project as design and function began to evolve.

Despite the interruption caused by a global pandemic, the team regrouped at the end of spring 2020 and worked on the final design throughout the summer before it was presented to Ross and the university for review. Architecture Professor Justin Diles was challenged with refining the project to ensure it met budget requirements, while accounting for building standards of Ohio State. As with most real-world projects, adjustments and iterations required the team to be flexible as the design and function were recalibrated several times.

“There were several objectives that we wanted to execute for the client. These included the presence of a living garden, use of kinetic elements and it being housed in the American Electric Power Foundation Atrium of Fontana Labs,” said Diles, who has joint appointment in MSE.

Earlier designs used exposed nodes to represent a DNA helix as the primary structural element and incorporated LED rivets programmed with automation. Later iterations saw the kinetic mechanism transitioned to a gantry which moved up and down while taking photographs of the garden that would be transmitted to an adjacent monitor. Kinetic mechanics had a starring role in the tribute to Carolyn, and education was the theme. It meant future students could harvest data from the living garden, like growth rates, sustainability and environmental proficiency.

Lincoln Electric, a long-time partner and supporter of the College of Engineering, fabricated the backbone of the structure.

“We used additive manufacturing or metal 3D printing to make most of the components and used traditional welding fabrication methods to assemble the components to make the base structure,” explained Dave Sterio, director of additive solutions at Lincoln Electric.

The additive manufacturing was performed with large industrial six-axis robots using a gas metal arc welding process at Lincoln Electric’s Additive Solutions facility in Euclid, Ohio. Amanda Dodge, additive engineer at Lincoln Electric and a 2020 Ohio State graduate, was in charge of the operation.

The base structure is made of 316L stainless steel and weighs 1,000 pounds. The final structure will be taller than eight feet once it is assembled.

A private, formal dedication of the Carolyn Ross Tribute Garden is slated for July 2022.

Original article by Libby Culley, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering