Doug Clark: EWU’s engineering showcase humbling for slacker like me

‘Five, four, three, two …”

This was the moment, the closest I’ll ever come to calling myself a rocket scientist.

Wayne Johnson, 28, finished his countdown. At “one,” I took one small step for slackers everywhere and pushed the black button on the plywood control panel.

“Shreeeeeeee…!!!”

About 20 yards away, on the grassy lawn that fronts Eastern Washington University’s computer and engineering sciences building, intense searing flames suddenly shot out from the end of a small metal tube that was clamped to some supports.

Mission accomplished.

The burning material was ammonium perchlorate – or solid rocket fuel to you nongeniuses.

I wish I could say that my button-pushing provoked a missile to shoot into the sky to perhaps land on the moon or, even better, take out the Spokane Valley City Council.

This was just a demonstration. Nobody was in any danger, dang it.

But in that one ear-splitting moment, I couldn’t be happier that I’d come to my alma mater on this Wednesday afternoon to look at the cool projects created by some of the brightest young people I’ve ever encountered.

The Senior Capstone, this event is called.

Translation: Any senior who wants to graduate from EWU with a degree in engineering has 20 weeks to dream up a project, bring it to reality, and then show it off to the world at this impressive annual event.

The students don’t go it alone. They form teams with like-minded peers and have some guidance from faculty members, who assume the roles of project managers.

Make no mistake. This is a big deal.

“This is the culminating period in their academic careers,” Esteban Rodriguez-Marek said. “They must pull from all the theories they’ve learned and build something.”

Rodriguez-Marek is the chairman of the electrical engineering department and a professor as well. I met him a couple of years ago when, against my better judgment, I agreed to participate in a doubles tennis exhibition. He agreed to be my partner, however, so what does that say about the man’s judgment?

Rodriguez-Marek invited me to see the capstone event.

“It’s pretty fun,” he told me. “What you see is the results of 20 weeks of them struggling with things that don’t work.”

Problems are solved. Failures are overcome.

“That’s when the learning happens.”

Not only that, but I also got to hobnob with Mary Cullinan, EWU’s president.

“Is that what we’re doing?” Cullinan quipped. “Hobnobbing?”

She can’t fool me. I could tell that the prez was mighty proud to have me as part of the college.

“It’s a university,” she reminded.

Not when I went here. Of course, that was back in dim, dark ages when AM radio was still the best way to hear rock music.

As a band geek, the closest I came to an engineer was walking down by the railroad tracks.

These engineering students are something else. Their projects, about 20 of them, were scattered outside and throughout the building’s lobby.

Everywhere you turned there was something amazing to see.

One team made a drone from scratch. A “self-flying quadracopter & charging station,” they called it.

A battery-powered motorcycle stood not far from an electric go-kart.

Inside I found a remote-control car that operated by arm commands. “A Gesture-control Vehicle,” the team called it.

A “Sun Tracking Solar Array” moved solar panels so they were always at the best angle to face the sun.

A 32-ton metal-bending machine. A “Homestead Windmill” to provide power to a bank of batteries.

I’ll admit it. I probably hung around the rocketeers more than I should have.

But come on. How do you not stand in awe of a sleek, 10-foot rocket that is positioned vertically in a 24-foot aluminum launch tower?

In several weeks, the rocket, tower and team members will travel to Utah to take part in an international contest. If everything works, EWU’s entry will fly 22,000 feet straight up and release its nose-cone payload that will come floating to Earth like a high-tech shuttlecock.

The rocket is the result of three teams of engineers. One worked on the rocket, creating an oven to bake sections of carbon fiber into the perfect shapes. Another team created the all-important tower that can be assembled in an hour or less.

Then comes the Jack Parsons Project, so named for the pioneer American rocket engineer.

This team was responsible for fashioning the precise amounts of solid propellant for two rocket motors.

Johnson and Isaiah Irish, two of five team members, graciously allowed me to push the button in the aforementioned blast-off test.

“Here’s a chunk of propellant,” Irish said when I met him earlier, as he held out a dark, circular piece. “And I feel pretty comfortable bringing it out here.

“Just don’t smoke around it.”

It’s humbling to hang around young people who are so much smarter than I am. But it also instills me with a powerful faith in the future.

The event’s success has Rodriguez-Marek thinking about holding it next year in the university’s main plaza or in the student union.

He should. The Senior Capstone is something every EWU student would soak in and enjoy.

Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by email at dougc@spokesman.com.