Research experiences program generates summer excitement, prospective graduate students

Tyler Kolden, a UND senior in electrical engineering, assembles part of a student-designed remote weather station.

Designing and building a satellite, an unmanned aerial vehicle, and inventing a weather station usually aren’t on the agendas of graduate students, let alone those of undergraduates.  In UND’s Engineering and Aerospace Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, it’s all in a summer’s work.

Funded by the National Science Foundation project for the past three years with additional support from the Office of the Vice President for Research, the University’s REU program allows undergraduate students and elementary teachers from across the country to design and build large-scale systems engineering projects with real-world applications. 

Participants are involved in interesting, hands-on projects, said Richard Schultz, the project leader and an associate professor of electrical engineering. “In reality, many of these students perform at the master’s level while they are here,” he said.

This summer a team of eight students, including two elementary teachers, built a wireless sensor network in partnership with engineering faculty advisors and Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium researchers.

Their goal was to measure “evapotranspiration” in sugar beets.  By tracking the moisture lost through evaporation and transpiration, scientists believe they can better predict the sugar content of beets and thereby help growers determine the optimal harvest time for each field.  The sensors, which must measure wind speed, temperature, solar radiation, and relative humidity, transmit the data to a base station, where it is logged and uploaded to a Web site for use by farmers. 

Students say they enjoy the challenge of developing real-life applications. 

Michael Rhodes (left), an aerospace engineering student from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, and Amanda Rindt, a UND electrical engineering student, check data transmitted by a student-designed weather station while classmates Tyler Kolden and James Jaszkowiak (right) make adjustments.  Kolden and Jaszkowiak also are UND electrical engineering majors.

“The job is one big problem-solving exercise,” said Dave Jenson, an English and Latin teacher from Erskine, Minn.  “I’m learning a lot about things I previously knew nothing about, like electronics and sensors.” 

“This is as close as I’ll get to the real thing before graduation,” said Ed Banta, an electrical engineering technology major from Purdue University.  “I didn’t do anything with wireless sensors until I came here.”

“I like the problem-solving, task-based project,” observed Michael Rhodes, an aerospace engineering student from North Carolina State University in Raleigh.  “We come up with ideas to complete the job.  The mentors tear it apart, and we come up with new and better ideas.  This is truly real-world team experience.”

Although there are REU projects throughout the nation, UND’s is unique, says Schultz, because it focuses on interdisciplinary group efforts that offer more interaction with faculty and each other.  Perhaps more importantly, the participants practice some critical life-long skills:  communication, teamwork, and critical thinking. 

Established by the National Science Foundation to attract more American students into pursuing graduate degrees and careers in engineering and the sciences, this program at UND is part of its strategy to increase the number of engineering graduate students.  

Spending an entire summer working on a project allows students and faculty to focus on the job — and finish it — without the demands of classes.  Faculty mentors have more time to work with students, says Schultz, and those students benefit from learning by doing.

The projects are impressive. 

Last summer, students built an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), or a radio-controlled airplane.  It has been used to capture mosquitoes in flight for later study by a West Nile virus expert, sample coal plant emissions in conjunction with the UND Energy and Environmental Research Center, and shoot aerial photographs.  UAVs, Schultz said, are perfect for flying “3-D” missions: those that are dull, dirty, or dangerous. 

In 2003, REU students improved CubeSat, a satellite developed by previous engineering students that was launched with a weather balloon to high altitude in order to test the electronics in low-temperature and low-pressure conditions.  A number of participants also became involved in UND’s AgCam project, which is tentatively scheduled to fly on a NASA Shuttle mission for installation in the International Space Station in late 2006 or early 2007.  AgCam’s mission is to capture images for precision farming, ranching, and forestry in the Upper Midwest, sending data for analysis by UND’s Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium.