INNOVATION on display

& lt;a href=mailto:milliken@vindy.com & gt;By PETER MILLIKEN & lt;/a & gt;
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A lightweight steel bridge, a concrete canoe, a walking robot and a human-powered tricycle that might do 50 miles per hour.
These are among projects designed and built by teams of Youngstown State University students in mechanical, civil, chemical, electrical and industrial engineering. The projects were exhibited Thursday in Moser Hall on campus. Local businesses donated cash and materials for the projects.
"We're very proud of our students, and I'd put them up against anybody," said Cynthia Hirtzel, engineering dean.
"It builds camaraderie among the students. It builds their teamwork skills. It builds their project management skills," Scott Martin, professor and chairman of civil engineering, said of project participants.
First-place bridge
The 25-foot-long, 31/2-foot-wide steel bridge, weighing a mere 142 pounds, and built without tools, was assembled in just over three minutes. It sagged only 5/8 of an inch while holding 2,500 pounds in a recent regional competition in Pittsburgh, where it won first place overall among 11 competing universities.
In the competition, which included Ohio and Ohio State universities and the universities of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Kentucky, the bridge also won in six of seven subcategories, including the lightest, strongest and fastest-assembled bridge. The YSU bridge will enter a national competition among about 45 universities in Golden, Colo., next month.
"One person can't do this project. This project requires a team," said Lance Kraynak of West Middlesex, Pa., captain of the 20-member bridge-building team, and a civil engineering student who will graduate next month. "When you're working in a group of 20 people, you learn how to work together," he said, adding that most jobs require teamwork.
Concrete canoe
Another civil engineering project displayed was part of a 20-foot, 145-pound concrete canoe, built by an eight-student team, which won second place in the Ohio Valley Regional Conference competition for a written design paper, but broke apart when it was dropped before it could be raced in competition in Pittsburgh.
How can concrete float? The canoe displaces water, thereby creating some buoyancy, Martin explained. But because of tiny air-filled glass spheres the students embedded in the concrete, a flat piece of the material would be light enough to float, he added.
Five mechanical engineering students built a 10-legged walking robot, which is powered by rechargeable batteries and has a programmable on-board computer. The robot can also be tethered to its controller or remote-controlled as it retrieves objects.
Applications could be for remote-controlled bomb retrieval or as a Mars rover that could step over rocks, rather than having to wheel itself around them, said Mark Moccia of Hubbard, a member of the walking-robot team. It will compete next week in the international Walking Robot Challenge in Schenectady, N.Y.
The human-powered vehicle is a 55-pound, 24-speed recumbent tricycle, with an aerodynamically efficient plastic wind screen, whose driver steers it with a steering wheel while sitting in a soft, wide seat. Kevin Geiser of Dalton, Ohio, one of four students who built this mechanical engineering project, said he expects it can be pedaled at 50 mph in a human-powered vehicle competition next month in Gainesville, Fla.