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The project team (left to right): Hannah Ulibarri, Nathan Blackburn, Grant Foster, Peyton Gorans, Prof. Dan Dubei, Zef Dickerson. (Not pictured: Oliver McLeod and Lucas Hromyk.)

Each spring, senior mechanical engineering students at The ����aa���� get the chance to bring their ideas to life during their final semester. Often described as challenging but highly rewarding, the senior design project represents the years of knowledge and hands-on experience the students acquire in their field during their time in the Department of Engineering and Computer Science.

This year, a class of seven seniors (led by mechanical engineering professor Dan Dubei) spent their capstone course researching, designing, and building an agricultural robot that will serve TMU’s Agriculture Club by spreading compost over farmland.

The idea first began when discussions between the student engineers and the head of the Agriculture Club, Blake Spomer, revealed the tediousness of hand-spreading manure and other fertilizing products over ground being prepared for seeding. Having uncovered a real need on campus that they could fill, the senior class immediately began researching agricultural equipment.

Hannah Ulibarri (who graduated this May) says of the choice, “We liked that it was actually going to be used for something that would be helpful to people. It gave us extra motivation to work hard, make it work, and be accountable to our deadlines and our specs.”

Ulibarri and her peers soon discovered firsthand why the senior design project is meant to take a whole semester. They had to learn to collaborate as a team in a practical, hands-on environment to create a working finished product. Dubei describes how multiple iterations of the design had to be scrapped and reworked for the robot to function properly.

When it was finally completed, Dubei proclaimed it to be “industrial quality” and “an excellent product,” capable of carrying loads of over a ton. Dubei and Ulibarri hope that future capstone classes will explore the modular aspects of the robot — the ability of its parts to be modified to complete different agricultural tasks.

Projects like this, which demonstrate students’ career readiness and problem-solving abilities, are especially crucial in the department’s journey toward obtaining accreditation from ABET, an internationally recognized organization that vets the quality of engineering and technology programs. ABET has accredited the engineering programs of schools such as MIT, Stanford, and UCLA.

At the final demonstration of the robot in action, Dubei spoke glowingly not only of his class’s achievements, but of their attitude amid challenges and frustration.

“You can see in a school like ours, where ����aa���� and Scripture are first, the students approach things differently,” he said. “They know how to humble themselves. Our students and their desire to do everything with excellence are a real testimony of ����aa����.”

Learn more about TMU’s mechanical engineering program here.