PCE News
Engineering Students Adapt to Complete Ski Seat Project Despite COVID Complications
July 29, 2020
Engineering students had to improvise, adapt, and overcome in order to complete their final senior projects in a semester up-ended by COVID-19. The ski seat project of one student team provides many examples of the innovative problem-solving required.
David Cox, owner of Jumping Jack Ski Seat, LLC worked with students Peter Martini, Joseph Putman, Syed Muhammad Abdullah Bin Azhar Ali, Sajina Poudel, and Abdulelah Altwfail along with faculty advisor Dr. Wendy Reffeor to design and build a ski seat which can be quickly and efficiently assembled and disassembled for ease of portability and use. The ski seat is a recreational device which provides an alternative to traditional down-hill skiing for snow sport enthusiasts, allowing the skier to take on the slopes while in a seated position. The final product was designed to work on snow hills with slopes no greater than 45 degrees. It needed to be reliable, easy to use, safe, durable, portable, light weight, adjustable, and require minimal maintenance.
The students were working on the project in the GVSU Keller Laboratories when COVID-19 hit Michigan, resulting in a statewide Shelter-in-Place Order and the closure of GVSU buildings. Enter the first new challenge: finding a place to work. Any location needed to be near enough that students could easily travel to work on the project and also allow for social distancing and following of COVID-related health and safety measures. Cox contacted Cubesmart and obtained permission to give the students access to his storage unit for assembling and modifying the ski seat. He left tools in the storage unit and provided masks and hand sanitizer to the students. The team used the storage unit to build a ramp and complete testing of the ski seat.
Manufacturing of prototypes was another challenge caused by COVID. Without access to GVSU laboratories, the team had to find an industry partner nearby and willing to work with students. Chip Furst of East River Machine & Tool in Muskegon, Michigan stepped up to provide consultation with the students and manufacturing assistance, using the students’ design to create and construct the final machined prototype of the ski seat. “It was great being able to sit down with professional machinists when building the final prototype,” said Martini. “It was very helpful to get their opinion on the build and be able to learn the ‘Do's’ and ‘Don'ts’ of designing.”
Several ski shops also provided consultation and assistance during the design process. Tucker VanTol of MACkite provided a Vermont Release Calibrator for the team which was used for testing of the ski seat binding release. Andrew Horton of Northern Edge Snowsports met with the students to demonstrate appropriate use of the binding tests. Richard Hendricks of Service Center 91 provided ski binding technical consulting. Peter Rennie, Assistant Manager at Boyne Country Sports, invited the students to visit and learn about current ski-testing technology. The students also gained knowledge about the patent process through consultation with Kevin Grzelak of Price Heneveld LLP, and of confidentiality issues through discussion with Linda Chamberlain in GVSU’s Technology Commercialization office.
Cox was impressed with the organization, communication skills, and ingenuity of the student engineering team, noting that they were able to complete the project on-time and to expectations despite the “COVID conundrum.” Cox felt that the experience provided an excellent learning opportunity and chance for the students to obtain additional professional skills. “I provided the students with a concept and they made it into a workable model,” he said. “The students were open to feedback and adaptations and cognizant of keeping me, as the sponsor, appraised throughout the process.”
“The biggest learning curve was the ability to adapt and overcome the obstacles that presented themselves to maintain the progression of the project,” explained Putman.
"The best ability is adaptability. This project faced a long list of challenges along the way, for example, the novel design idea and the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Abdullah Bin Azhar. “But the team adapted to the situation and was able to pull (the project) through with the help of the great mentorship and guidance provided by our peers and advisors."
Visit the School of Engineering website.