Engineering Club member Jeremiah Freece inspects a servo, a motor-driven device, for any problems. Ruby Go | Washtenaw Voice
Leaders and members improvise through obstacles
By Willow Symonds
Staff Writer
Before the Engineering Club began their Electronics Evening on March 23, the leaders had to solve a problem: Why wasn’t their pre-programmed code working? The code had worked for each servo just earlier that Thursday, but now it would power only two servos instead of the intended three.
Club Secretary John Martelli, club member Jeremiah Freece, and guest speaker Nick Ristow soon discovered another cause for problems: the joystick they were using was damaged before they’d used it. The leaders replaced the joystick and chose to stick with the two working servos.
Pre-engineering students and roommates Mark Nitkiewicz and Ben Cousino founded the Engineering Club this January. Each meeting was a baby step toward their first event of the semester, the Electronics Evening.
“Past meetings have been about the concepts. … We might spend the whole time working on how to write some code,” Nitkiewicz explained. “This time, we’re now applying it to the project.”
However, since not all attendees had been to previous meetings, all four leaders wore black T-shirts with ‘ENGINEERING’ boldly printed across the front. They wanted new members to feel encouraged to ask questions and join in, not excluded by others who may have had more knowledge.
Nitkiewicz, Cousino, and Ristow explained helpful skill sets and the foundations of the day’s activity: building a crane.
Once moving onto the meeting’s project, Nitkiewicz explained the process of building a crane, which included planning, writing code, wiring the circuit, and building a frame to hold all components together. Everyone in attendance split into three groups, and Nitkiewicz told them to “build an epic crane that’s better than the other groups’ crane.”
The club’s leaders had planned every detail beforehand, but they still had to improvise throughout the evening.
Each group was supposed to screw the metal frames into the circuit’s sides to create a complete robotic device. Due to Nitkiewicz forgetting the screwdrivers at home (a mistake he hopes not to repeat), the groups abandoned the screws and bolts and fastened the frames with zip ties instead.
Later, several members realized another problem mirrored what Martelli and Freece had gone through earlier: the joysticks were faulty, and the groups had to use new ones.
The three groups got the circuits working at least halfway, but the end results were “absolutely prototypes,” in Nitkiewicz and other attendees’ words.
Engineering Club President, Mark Nitkiewicz, presents the meeting’s plan. Ruby Go | Washtenaw Voice
Most meetings run from 4:30-6:30 p.m., but this event lasted an hour longer. To the leaders’ surprise, some members continued to socialize and build well after 7:30 p.m. Due to time limits and technical errors, they expanded their project into the next week, a decision the leaders hadn’t anticipated.
They also weren’t expecting mathematics professor Laura Perez, who’d matched the leaders with her ‘ENGINEERING’ shirt, to bring both homemade fettuccine and pecan cheesecake.
The Engineering Club invited Perez to their meetings when the Math Club she’d advised had disbanded earlier this semester. She thought the event was “amazing.”
“All three teams developed a working robotic machine,” Perez said. “There was excellent interaction between them, as well as some competitive spirit.”
Miles Larson, a pre-engineering transfer student, had happened to notice a flier advertising the Electronics Evening the day before. Though he hadn’t attended previous meetings and didn’t know much about circuits, he still “learned a lot in a couple of hours … with really passionate and down-to-earth people.”
“Oh, and there was a pasta dish that was phenomenal,” he said in reference to Perez’s cooking.
For future events, Nitkiewicz would “give [himself] more time” beforehand, as the leaders had planned the Electronics Evening only three weeks after starting the club. Leading up to March 23, Nitkiewicz pulled all-nighters to work on the event.
“It takes more effort, but it’s more fun for me and everyone else afterward, so a bigger return on the investment,” he said.
“Being able to think like an engineer is something you learn, not something you’re born with,” Nitkiewicz said. “If you feel like you don’t have the skill set, you can gain traction somewhere. That’s what the Engineering Club is for.”
Club Secretary John Martelli and club member Jermemiah Freece look through code to correct any mistakes. Ruby Go | Washtenaw Voice