Engineering projects benefit community

Seniors in the engineering department are preparing projects as part of their graduation requirement, according to Dr. Edward McMahon, professor of engineering and one of the faculty members in charge of the senior projects.Three of these teams of senior projects include the Mac-Lift, the Lobby Display and the Civil Engineering Design teams.

Team Mac-Lift consists of five students working to complete a "device to help people with disabilities to get on a horse," McMahon said.

Matt Chatham-Tombs, a Nashville senior and a member of team Mac-Lift, said the contraption would help a small organization that helps disabled people mount horses.

The project is funded through a Tennessee Assistive Technology Grant, Ricky Thompson, a senior from Chattanooga and another member of the team, said.

According to Thompson, Team Mac-Lift has been working on their project since January.

"We use class time each week to design and we spend most of our time on the weekends working on [the Mac-Lift]," Thompson said.

"We're using an existing medical lift and we're going to put it on a trailer so it can be mobile for events like the Special Olympics," Thompson said.

To ensure the Mac-Lift will be safe and work correctly, the team has a testing schedule once they finish the prototype, according to Thompson.

The Lobby Display team, overseen by McMahon, is "building an air levitator that is going to make a styrofoam ball float," according to team member Robert Griffin, a senior from Hixson, Tenn.

Griffin said the display will be put into the lobby of the Creative Discovery Museum Science Theatre at Northgate Mall in Hixson.

"The Creative Discovery Museum Science Theatre has a really empty lobby and groups of 200 children or more go in there at a time so it will help give them something else to play and learn with," Griffin said.

According to Griffin the Lobby Display project is funded through the Creative Discovery Museum.

The final project advised by McMahon is the Civil Engineering Design project to create an alternate design for March Adams for the up-and-coming Lyerly Medical Office Park, according to Derek Blackwood, team member and Chattanooga senior.

"The team still has to "go through all the processes that real civil engineers go through," Blackwood said.

Blackwood said, "We had to go to a pre-submittal meeting with the City of Chattanooga and let them see and approve our plans."

According to Blackwood, the project "doesn't cost anything, it is all just design on Auto-Cad."

All three teams have been working on their projects since last semester and spending time on the weekends to prepare for the end of the fall 2008 semester, according to the students.