One of the most valuable assets students can gain from their time on campus is real world experience.

That is what Ann Zuzuly and Stuart Herndon, seniors in engineering, along with a now graduated alumna took away from their senior project in mechanical engineering.

For the project, mechanical engineering seniors were all assigned a unique, real world problem. 

Zuzuly and Herndon’s problem was to configure a new design plan for the University’s Mechanical Engineering Building, which was built in the ‘50s. Their goal was to double the amount of space for the building.

But there was a catch.

“The campus has a requirement where there can be no increase in electrical load or water load or anything,” Zuzuly said. “If they double the size of the building, they need it to stay at the same levels of energy.”

Students were able to work with corporate sponsors for the senior project, so Zuzuly and Herndon communicated with vice president of Johnson Controls. The team received input from him on what could be feasible for this particular project.

The biggest challenge of the project was running different combinations of exterior and interior energy systems to determine the best solution for the building addition.

“It’s like mixing and matching,” Zuzuly said. “We made a model of the new building and ran different combinations in order to determine the lowest operating cost.”

As well as energy costs, the team had to factor in the costs of maintenance, installation and moving faculty out of the building to complete restoration.   

The project became a great learning experience for Zuzuly’s post-undergrad life. She gained experience in scheduling, project management and working with a team on a strict deadline for a real-life problem. 

“We had lots of meetings with people around campus in all different departments,” she said. “It felt like the real world.”

Despite setbacks with a glitchy computer system, the biggest obstacle Herndon faced was the initial challenge of working with the faculty and services team on campus.   

“They are very old-school,” Herndon said. “Because of the size of the University, they want to use technology that is very well proven and that they are used to.” 

Despite the University’s resistance, the team was able to find a solution using the technology already in place.

“The end result was that we saved the building on the whole, even though we were doubling it in size, around $50,000,” Herndon said.

Herndon said he values that the University is getting a lot greener.   

“Even just on a residential level, it is interesting to think about, ‘How can I decrease my footprint?’” he said. “The principles behind being greener and finding novel ways of improving energy usage are worthwhile.”

Emad Jassim, a mechanical science and engineering professor, advised and worked with the team. He was impressed by the team’s creativity in designing the project and their open-mindedness in looking at various options for optimizing the building’s energy. 

“They thought outside the box and thought about what technology was available to best meet the needs of this project,” he said. 

Jassim also noted their ability to think about not only initial costs, but long-term energy costs. Often times, people only think about the initial costs of designing buildings.

“We don’t really think about how much it’s going to cost to maintain that house, and heat it and cool it, which is actually the majority of the cost of buildings,” he said. “People don’t think about that, but it is a major factor.”

In the end, the project benefited both the students and the department.

“It was a great opportunity to have the students work on designing a building that is for them, for students,” he said. “In that way, they can contribute back to the department in a neat way.”

Kelly can be reached at [email protected].