As a liberal arts college, Elizabethtown College has a large variety of majors, minors and programs.

One commonly shared aspect of majors is a capstone project. For the engineering major at the College, the senior capstone project actually begins in junior year when students are assigned to project groups based on their interests and begin to generate ideas for their projects.

Margo Donlin is a senior engineering major with a dual concentration in mechanical and electrical engineering. Donlin’s group also includes electrical engineering majors Sam McNulty and Justin Cherry as well as industrial engineering major Hui Liu.

For their project, the group is designing a “doorbell” alert system for a deaf farmer to use in his barn so if visitors come to the door and he does not see him they will be able to alert him. The system includes a button that is wirelessly connected to a wristband which lights up when the button is pressed.

According to Donlin in an email interview, her group has faced many obstacles during the process.

“Sometimes it seems like every time we think we have something figured out, a new issue arises,” Donlin wrote in an email, “But we address them as quickly and effectively as we can.”

Originally, Donlin’s group had been developing an entirely different project during the junior year course, but realised it would not be possible due to time and budget constraints on this project.

At this stage, the group reached out to an organization called United Cerebral Palsy of Central PA to inquire if any of their clients could use assistive devices. Donlin’s group was then connected with AgrAbility, who focus on assistive technologies for agricultural workers throughout PA. Their contact at AgrAbility offered several project ideas, and they decided upon the light up alert system.

Since then there have been several other obstacles to the development of the project, but with research and redesigns the group is “still confident that our system will function properly and meet the needs of the farmer,” Donlin said via email.

Senior mechanical engineering major Kyle Lumbert is working in a group with fellow seniors Austin Reth, Scott Romich, Audrey Shultz and Caity Stencler. Their project is to update the axillary crutch so a wider variety of users can use axillary crutches with freedom to a greater extent.

They seek to improve the usability of the crutches for individuals with larger body types and for individuals at a wider range of heights. The group also seeks to create crutches with more traction on uneven ground.

According to an email interview with Lumbert, their project is progressing well. They have created multiple prototypes “ranging from the leftover cardboard [they] found in the recycling bin to [their] more finished product that [they] have bought materials for and are working on fine-tuning and adjusting at this time.”

Lumbert’s group faced fewer challenges than Donlin’s with the primary obstacle to the crutch project being a difficulty in creating one crutch that easily adjusts to a variety of heights. The group is still working to fix this issue, since each adjustment to the crutch necessitates the readjustment of the height mechanism.

Senior Nick Winch is working in a group with fellow seniors Darren Labenberg, Abby Kopytko and Tommy Kuhn. Their project is called “The Growing Bike” and is a bike which will be able to expand—increasing in height and length—with the intention that as a child grows they will only need this one bicycle.

The project is intended to benefit lower income families whose budgets would be put under economic strain by the purchase of several bikes for a growing child or children.

Winch’s group faced a similar problem to Donlin’s in that they had to shift away from a completely different project idea, a turf-based snowblower.

This change in direction took away a large portion of time that they could have designated to varying elements of their “Growing Bike,” but Winch feels switching has been generally advantageous.

According to Winch, their project is now moving along well. They are beginning the processes of assembly and part manufacturing, having already finished the detailed design as well as the market analysis and budgetary constraints.

While she does not know exactly how close this project compares to a project outside of a college setting, Donlin said in an email that “a relatively independent project like this encompasses everything we have learned over the past four years, from engineering skills to writing to teamwork.”

Lumbert said via email that he feels the capstone is beneficial to engineering students “not only to show what they have learned, but also to gain team skills like communication, organization and time management.”

“Working on the project has taught me some new things about project management and some creative strategies to overcome difficult design options,” Winch said via email.

Winch finds the the most important element of any capstone course to be motivation. “It really is only as hard as you make it and as difficult as the problem you’re trying to solve,” Winch wrote in an email interview. “The whole point is showing off what you’ve learned over four years, just get it done and make it good.”

Winch believes the capstone course well displays the “engineering mind” students have developed over their time as a student at Etown. According to Winch, the project is primarily based upon being “a creative problem solver and developing a solid, marketable idea, both of which are not elements which can be taught.”

“[The capstone] is a good way for the students to show what they have learned and express this knowledge to groupmates, peers and faculty during presentations on SCAD day,” Lumbert said in an email interview.

“I thoroughly enjoy working on a project like this, especially given that we are designing an assistive device to help improve someone else’s life,” Donlin said in an email interview. “We are truly embodying the college’s motto of ‘Educate for Service.’”