The sign urges: Please don’t tap on the glass. The animals may be frightened.
Virginia Tech’s College of Science does not maintain a zoo on campus, so who hosts the creatures?
The Ware Lab is not truly home to monkeys or tigers, but rather engineering students with senses of humor.
Within a military building, next to the power plant at the intersection of Stanger and Barger Street, the Ware Lab is 10,000 square-feet of workspace for 19 undergraduate engineering design projects. Inside, a machine shop boasts a wall of windows, onto which students taped the wildlife warning.
“Everyone has, you know, their little jokes that go on to keep it kind of light, because you’re trying to get a lot of work done, but you don’t want to be stressed out,” said Stephen Riner, a senior mechanical engineering major.
The Ware Lab represents many of the 14 engineering concentrations, including civil, aerospace, ocean and electrical.
Riner is one of more than 20 students on the hybrid electric vehicle team, which is in the midst of a three-year competition sponsored by General Motors and the U.S. Department of Energy. The EcoCAR challenge prompts 17 university teams to reduce vehicle fuel use and emissions without sacrificing elements such as safety and consumer appeal.
Manipulating a GM-donated vehicle, Riner said the Tech team aims to submit an entry that achieves 100 miles per gallon. Using plug-in hybrid technology, the vehicle could travel 40 continuous miles on electricity from a household outlet. Located at the farthest end of the Ware Lab, the hybrid electric vehicle team cuts and grinds on the Chevrolet.
The building is a long, narrow rectangle with a central aisle. Along either side of the aisle are fenced bays dedicated to each project — except for the human-powered submarine team, whose messy fiberglass landed them a basement slot. The setup isn’t unlike zoo pens, though the cages are often open and the beasts run the show.
The bays vary slightly in size according to project demands. The Chevrolet car, for example, mandates a larger stretch than the autonomous aerial vehicle team, whose airborne product can occupy a desktop.
Ware Lab manager Dewey Spangler said the building had no such organization when the college of engineering acquired it in 1998.
“The space was pretty much empty,” he said, “but we couldn’t use it as empty space.”
More than 100 years old, the building was previously a laundry facility. Spangler said it had no closed-pipe system, and large floor ditches served as drainage for excess water. To support the projects — and meet updated legal codes — the building required significant renovations; however, the money to make it happen was not on hand.
Joseph F. Ware Jr., a 1937 Tech graduate of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, learned of his alma mater’s setback. Spangler said Ware felt engineering students needed such an opportunity. Their textbooks conveyed theory, but their hands were idle.
“They’re lacking that visualization of how a bolt goes onto a threaded rod,” Spangler said, paraphrasing Ware, “or how a weld actually connects two parts together.”
A donation from Ware and his wife enabled the college to move forward, and it ultimately named the facility after its key contributor. By the summer of 1998, Spangler said the first projects shifted to the Ware Lab from scattered locations such as Patton and Randolph Halls.
Arthur Klages, another alumnus, contributed to the Ware Lab’s early development.
A 1942 industrial engineering graduate, Klages was a machinist who founded the Burlington Handbag Company and patented several devices related to sewing operations. After retiring, he offered some of his machines to what is now called Klages’ Machine Shop in the Ware Lab.
Today, Klages Machine Shop contains 11 major pieces of equipment that Spangler estimates are worth $250,000. The Ware Lab also houses a computer room, where five computers offer more than 15 programs that aid engineering design.
“We’re envied by other (engineering) departments because we’re so self-contained,” Spangler said. “You can do your CAD work in one room, walk over and build your car in one other room, and (in) 10 steps go fabricate a part for that car.”
Spangler said colleges including Duke, North Carolina State and Penn State have visited the Ware Lab.
“They want to emulate us,” he said. “They say, ‘This is the way to do integrated undergraduate team project work.’”
Spangler said more than 1,000 people tour the Ware Lab each year, so interest transcends just universities. Corporate sponsors and K-12 student groups filter through, as well as prospective Tech students.
Since engineers sometimes endure an introverted stereotype, Spangler said the openness of Ware Lab forces them to articulate their endeavors.
“I think one of the strong components of Ware Lab is that we get these students out of their shell,” he said.
Speaking smoothly to corporations and organizations is critical when they provide materials and money, among other things. Spangler said the list is approximately 20 and continues to grow.
Goodyear makes sure students get Tech’s formula-style racecar rolling. Baker Hughes tag-teamed with GM to supply a Sierra pickup truck and 36-foot-long trailer that transports the racecar and other projects, such as the Baja all-terrain vehicle and the Blind Driver Challenge
vehicle, to test courses and competitions.
Senior mechanical engineering major Kimberly Wenger said the Blind Driver Challenge team is negotiating with the National Federation of the Blind to acquire a 2010 Ford Escape Hybrid. The team refers to its current vehicle as a go-kart.
Wenger said the Blind Driver Challenge began in 2005 when the NFB proposed the creation of a vehicle so a person who is blind could drive independently. Tech was the only university to respond and remains the only one invested in the initiative. The team holds weekly teleconferences with the federation and infrequently meets with some of its members for testing and feedback.
“It’s really awesome to see the product that you’re making, using what you’ve learned in school, is actually helping somebody or a group of people,” Wenger said.
Because the car is a first generation, Wenger said the 13-member team conjures up novel ideas.
One of these is a product called AirPix.
“One of our products is actually patent-pending,” she said. “So it’s like brand new ideas that you’re coming up with.”
The AirPix interface is headed by senior mechanical engineering major Nina Camoriano. Its creation is the result of comments made by NFB President Marc Maurer.
“He said that he wanted a refreshable tactile map that he could feel with his hands to give him some indication of the surroundings of the car,” Camoriano said.
A grid of circles comprises AirPix.
“It’s like an air hockey table,” Camoriano said, “except that the airflow to each orifice can be individually controlled as opposed to being all on or all off.”
Lasers projected from the car register nearby objects, thus producing airflow in the appropriate portions of the AirPix grid.
While such advancements are appealing, the Ware Lab is not strictly a site for innovation. Wayne Neu, faculty adviser for the human-powered submarine team, said the Ware Lab is a more general preparatory tool for his students.
“Everybody’s looking for developing the next fancy piece of hardware,” Neu said, “but it’s not so much about that. It’s about developing people. ... It’s developing engineers that have a bent for the water.”
Neu said collaborating with students fuels his position as a faculty adviser. Otherwise, the human-powered submarine team hardly finds its way onto his professional resume.
“Only the one line of ‘other activities,’” he said. “So it’s just one of those kind of service jobs.”
Baja faculty adviser Richard Goff echoed Neu.
“We feel like it’s a really valuable thing for the students to do,” Goff said. “It’s a much more engaging environment to be involved on a team like this with the students than it is to teach in a normal class.”
Kimberly Wenger worked with the Baja team as a freshman and sophomore before shifting to the Blind Driver Challenge. Engineering students can contribute as volunteers through independent studies or as part of a senior design capstone.
Since most of the projects compete each year or every few years, they must accommodate member shifts and graduation. Ware Lab manager Spangler said this mandates “information transfer.”
Some teams effectively mentor the rising generation. Goff said the Baja team has a fluid pipeline that sustains the project quality. Spangler said other teams falter, and he’s considering placing in a policy manual with the recommendation that upperclassman formally impart their knowledge to their successors.
If they do not, would Tech engineers again endure a hands-off curriculum? Though not a current concern, Wenger said the thought is unnerving.
“I couldn’t imagine sitting in a classroom for four years to learn engineering things and then actually being ready to take on a job out in the real world,” she said, “unless you just wanted to sit in a cube and chug equations for the rest of your life.”