Classroom
They’ve Got the Power
Freshman engineers take on an electrifying project.
On their first day of introductory engineering in January, two dozen freshmen slouch at lab tables in the Engineering Centers Building, waiting to hear the semester’s assignment. Little do they know, they’re in for a jolt. Their professor, Giri Venkataramanan PhD’92, has spent part of the previous year constructing four wind turbines on three continents. And now, he announces, they’re going to build one, too.
“Other classes will design this and design that, but I told my class, ‘We’re going to take a different approach,’ “ recalls Venkataramanan. “We’re going to build this wind turbine, and at the end of the semester, we want to generate electricity. If you do that, you get an A.”
The budding engineers sit upright at the news — or at least as upright as teenagers will sit. In Introduction to Engineering, students usually build simple devices of their own design, items like new-fangled bike racks or ergonomic weeding gadgets. By constructing something as large and complex as a wind turbine, Venkataramanan’s students will be breaking new ground.
Once past the initial surprise, they quickly embrace the plan.
“I thought it would be really cool,” says Matt Bayer x’10. “In seventh- and eighth-grade tech ed, you make something out of wood, and you get to keep it. But it’s not like a wind turbine.”
On their first day of introductory engineering in January, two dozen freshmen slouch at lab tables in the Engineering Centers Building, waiting to hear the semester’s assignment. Little do they know, they’re in for a jolt. Their professor, Giri Venkataramanan PhD’92, has spent part of the previous year constructing four wind turbines on three continents. And now, he announces, they’re going to build one, too.
“Other classes will design this and design that, but I told my class, ‘We’re going to take a different approach,’ “ recalls Venkataramanan. “We’re going to build this wind turbine, and at the end of the semester, we want to generate electricity. If you do that, you get an A.”
The budding engineers sit upright at the news — or at least as upright as teenagers will sit. In Introduction to Engineering, students usually build simple devices of their own design, items like new-fangled bike racks or ergonomic weeding gadgets. By constructing something as large and complex as a wind turbine, Venkataramanan’s students will be breaking new ground.
Once past the initial surprise, they quickly embrace the plan.
“I thought it would be really cool,” says Matt Bayer x’10. “In seventh- and eighth-grade tech ed, you make something out of wood, and you get to keep it. But it’s not like a wind turbine.”
A wind turbine isn’t merely cool, however. Venkataramanan believes that constructing one also helps students appreciate the complicated interplay of the engineering fields. Too often, disciplines like electrical and civil engineering are taught in isolation of one another, he says, even though solving problems in the real world almost always requires an interdisciplinary approach.
“I think the wind turbine is very rich in terms of bringing the disciplines together,” he says. “And it fits in with today’s concerns about climate change and sustainable energy.”
The idea for the classroom project emerged in the off-the-grid emptiness of the Scottish Highlands, where sustainable wind energy is a must for many. There, Venkataramanan kicked off a yearlong sabbatical in May 2005 by taking a wind turbine workshop, led by the turbine’s designer, Hugh Piggot. Starting only with coils of wire and pieces of wood and metal, a team of ten built a wind turbine by hand in just one week. In a stiff wind, its blades spin at roughly 300 rpm to generate 200 watts of electricity — enough power in twenty-four hours to meet the needs of a small home.
So impressed was Venkataramanan with this success that he recruited teams of upperclass and graduate students during subsequent travels to California, Brazil, and Turkey to build three more of Piggot’s turbines. Then the electrical and computer engineering professor began to wonder: how might beginning students do with a project like this? By spring 2007, he was ready to try it with his introductory class.
“I think the wind turbine is very rich in terms of bringing the disciplines together,” he says. “And it fits in with today’s concerns about climate change and sustainable energy.”
The idea for the classroom project emerged in the off-the-grid emptiness of the Scottish Highlands, where sustainable wind energy is a must for many. There, Venkataramanan kicked off a yearlong sabbatical in May 2005 by taking a wind turbine workshop, led by the turbine’s designer, Hugh Piggot. Starting only with coils of wire and pieces of wood and metal, a team of ten built a wind turbine by hand in just one week. In a stiff wind, its blades spin at roughly 300 rpm to generate 200 watts of electricity — enough power in twenty-four hours to meet the needs of a small home.
So impressed was Venkataramanan with this success that he recruited teams of upperclass and graduate students during subsequent travels to California, Brazil, and Turkey to build three more of Piggot’s turbines. Then the electrical and computer engineering professor began to wonder: how might beginning students do with a project like this? By spring 2007, he was ready to try it with his introductory class.
After announcing the assignment on the first day, Venkataramanan divided the students into two teams and tasked each with building a wind turbine following Piggot’s instructions. Then, following a lesson in the safe use of power tools, they went to work. For some students — veterans of high school shop class or a grandfather’s basement workshop — the experience was familiar. For most, though, it was a nonstop crash course in welding metal, soldering wire, and molding plastic, not to mention sawing, grinding, and drilling.
“I learned how to weld just within the past two weeks — it was crazy,” marvels Bayer midway through the semester.
“I was kind of worried at first, because I’d never taken a tech class in high school or anything,” adds Kaitlin Brendel x’09. “But, actually, once you get into it and start using the materials, it’s not that bad. It’s kind of fun and exciting.”
One of the students’ toughest assignments was shaping the wind turbine’s wooden blades. In a process that spanned nearly the entire semester, they delicately sculpted planks of wood with a series of precise cuts, and then planed, sanded, and sanded some more. Although undeniably tedious at times, the effort yielded some impressive results, says Brendel, who notes that the students “started out with this big block of wood, and then it turned into this pretty intricate, technical thing.”
At every step, Venkataramanan kept lectures and directions to a minimum, letting the students mostly figure things out for themselves. Inevitably, this led to a fair number of mistakes — and some frustration.
“I learned how to weld just within the past two weeks — it was crazy,” marvels Bayer midway through the semester.
“I was kind of worried at first, because I’d never taken a tech class in high school or anything,” adds Kaitlin Brendel x’09. “But, actually, once you get into it and start using the materials, it’s not that bad. It’s kind of fun and exciting.”
One of the students’ toughest assignments was shaping the wind turbine’s wooden blades. In a process that spanned nearly the entire semester, they delicately sculpted planks of wood with a series of precise cuts, and then planed, sanded, and sanded some more. Although undeniably tedious at times, the effort yielded some impressive results, says Brendel, who notes that the students “started out with this big block of wood, and then it turned into this pretty intricate, technical thing.”
At every step, Venkataramanan kept lectures and directions to a minimum, letting the students mostly figure things out for themselves. Inevitably, this led to a fair number of mistakes — and some frustration.
“Screwing up and having to redo things, that’s always a pain,” says Jason Kontny x’08. “Like we just cut a board wrong today — it was a little short — and we had already done more work on it. So we had to start over from scratch.”
Yet Venkataramanan wouldn’t have it any other way. “We always tell students to succeed, succeed, succeed,” he says. “Whereas in the real world, there’s this common-sense knowledge that says, ‘We learn from our failures.’ “
But would the students fail at their ultimate goal of generating electricity? The day of reckoning came in mid-April. After finishing up a few last-minute tasks, the students finally assembled the alternator they’d been building the parts for all semester, and attached to it the turbine’s blades and tail. Cranking the blades around by hand, they then watched as first one turbine and then the other lit up a bank of four small lights. Yes! A grade of A all around!
Beyond that accomplishment, though, the project provided “a great insight into engineering,” says Ryan Raubolt x’10. “And it’s an interesting aspect — alternative energy — that we probably wouldn’t have been exposed to” otherwise.
Yet Venkataramanan wouldn’t have it any other way. “We always tell students to succeed, succeed, succeed,” he says. “Whereas in the real world, there’s this common-sense knowledge that says, ‘We learn from our failures.’ “
But would the students fail at their ultimate goal of generating electricity? The day of reckoning came in mid-April. After finishing up a few last-minute tasks, the students finally assembled the alternator they’d been building the parts for all semester, and attached to it the turbine’s blades and tail. Cranking the blades around by hand, they then watched as first one turbine and then the other lit up a bank of four small lights. Yes! A grade of A all around!
Beyond that accomplishment, though, the project provided “a great insight into engineering,” says Ryan Raubolt x’10. “And it’s an interesting aspect — alternative energy — that we probably wouldn’t have been exposed to” otherwise.
Although the next step would have been to erect the turbines outdoors atop two thirty-foot-tall towers, unfortunately, parts needed for the operation failed to arrive before semester’s end. Venkataramanan now hopes to install the turbines sometime this fall on the grounds of the West Madison Agricultural Station in Verona.
In the meantime, he’s busy making plans. “This wind turbine project was a pilot experience for me, so I hope to see it grow,” he says. Additional wind turbines top the list, of course. But he’s also talking with other faculty about building an energy-efficient house each summer and starting a certificate program in engineering for energy sustainability.
Whatever projects materialize in the future, Venkataramanan knows just the engineers for the job. “It’s fun to work with freshmen,” he says. “They’re new. They’re daring. And they’re willing to try anything.”
— Madeline Fisher PhD’98
In the meantime, he’s busy making plans. “This wind turbine project was a pilot experience for me, so I hope to see it grow,” he says. Additional wind turbines top the list, of course. But he’s also talking with other faculty about building an energy-efficient house each summer and starting a certificate program in engineering for energy sustainability.
Whatever projects materialize in the future, Venkataramanan knows just the engineers for the job. “It’s fun to work with freshmen,” he says. “They’re new. They’re daring. And they’re willing to try anything.”
— Madeline Fisher PhD’98
CLASS NOTE: War of Words
Integrated Liberal Studies 275: The Art of War
When the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu penned his treatise on The Art of War many centuries ago, he wasn’t thinking of comic book hero Captain America. But then, for Sun Tzu, war was literal, the central topic of discussion; art was just a metaphor. When faculty associate Kristin Hunt created a class called The Art of War, she meant the art to be literal, and war could be the subject of metaphors, similes, and symbols. Captain America fit right into her lesson plan.
“I was doing research on political uses of popular media, especially comic books,” she says. “A lot of early comic books created a sort of patriotic fantasy land — look at Superman in the 1940s. But that image changes over time, and I thought this would make a great topic for a class.”
Hunt’s class, which is offered for the first time this semester, covers four recent American conflicts: World War II, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the ongoing Iraq War. Her students — about twenty undergraduates from a variety of majors — will look at how these engagements have been represented in a variety of art forms, from literature and the fine arts to comic books, film, music, and other creative elements of pop culture.
“The basic question of the course,” she says, “is about the relationship between artists and observers in wartime — about how they see society and how they create representations of ‘our side’ and ‘the enemy.’ And while most of the artists take a negative view of war, the changing perspectives on patriotism and on conflict offer insight into how we construct history.”
— John Allen
When the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu penned his treatise on The Art of War many centuries ago, he wasn’t thinking of comic book hero Captain America. But then, for Sun Tzu, war was literal, the central topic of discussion; art was just a metaphor. When faculty associate Kristin Hunt created a class called The Art of War, she meant the art to be literal, and war could be the subject of metaphors, similes, and symbols. Captain America fit right into her lesson plan.
“I was doing research on political uses of popular media, especially comic books,” she says. “A lot of early comic books created a sort of patriotic fantasy land — look at Superman in the 1940s. But that image changes over time, and I thought this would make a great topic for a class.”
Hunt’s class, which is offered for the first time this semester, covers four recent American conflicts: World War II, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the ongoing Iraq War. Her students — about twenty undergraduates from a variety of majors — will look at how these engagements have been represented in a variety of art forms, from literature and the fine arts to comic books, film, music, and other creative elements of pop culture.
“The basic question of the course,” she says, “is about the relationship between artists and observers in wartime — about how they see society and how they create representations of ‘our side’ and ‘the enemy.’ And while most of the artists take a negative view of war, the changing perspectives on patriotism and on conflict offer insight into how we construct history.”
— John Allen
