Students Design Parking Garage: UNLV Senior Design
UNLV pushes student beyond the traditional research project! As a part of our College of Engineering, seniors are required to participate in a Senior Design project where they spend their final semester working with fellow students, faculty, and staff to create a project that they will present at the end of the term. Generally, these projects are focused on improving campus life or other pressing issues. However, it also showcases the students' personal interests.
For example, a few Civil Engineering students, Adrianna Gould, Alan Heng, and Lauren Mamaclay created a project that focused on the construction of a new parking garage on campus. They had to create a research plan for their construction, as well as a visual tutorial of the structure. Student, Adrianna Gould, speaks on her experience:
"I loved creating this project. This was the first time I got to work with such a variety of professors and campus departments in a professional setting. Our project focused on increasing parking efficiency in the southern area of campus. We were able to take a problem we all cared about and find a solution that could legitimately be implemented one day helping our UNLV community for generations to come which I think is way cool."
Among a set of seniors, Veronica (Ronnie) McKinney, Mechanical Engineering Major and Solar and Renewable Energy minor, created a cabinet and table top for people with disabilities at an affordable cost. In their design, they physically built the unit and presented it at the Senior Design competition. Ronnie's interest is solar energy and creating at an affordable cost. With this in the back of her mind, alongside her classmates, she was able to take her passions and apply them to her project. This is yet another example of students taking their passions and applying them to their studies outside of the classroom.
These are the opportunities that students get at UNLV. To learn more about UNLV Senior Design visit: https://www.unlv.edu/engineering/senior-design