 | December 2007 |
Letters: Heather Fondriest, SVSU Senior,
Mechanical Engineering, RACE Team Leader
 Heather Fondriest |
Dear Alumni,
The renovation and expanded Pioneer Hall has been completed. It is equipped with state of the art classrooms and labs. Some of the new labs include Performance Race shop, Machine Workshop, Foundry, Mechanical and Electrical labs, and computer labs. The building also features open hallways and display boards on the walls to help illustrate the types of projects that exist in Pioneer Hall.
As a senior in Mechanical Engineering and the Controls team manager for the Cardinal Formula Race Team (CFR), I am able to place book formulas and theories to real life experiences just by stepping into the Pioneer Hall labs. In the future I hope to be successful in any job I obtain. I have a passion for designing, building, and testing components.
The Performance Race shop houses both the CFR race team along with this past semester's Mechanical Engineering Engine Design course. This course, originally created to be structured as in-class has established a correlated lab session where students had the opportunity to design, build and test small block Chevy engines. The Performance Race shop is unique in its design equipping CFR student members with an engine room, paint booth used for carbon fiber composite projects, and various testing apparatuses. These and other labs allow the members the opportunity to test and analyze various racecar design components. With the addition of the Foundry, a course involving metal castings will be offered in the winter semester. Both of these mechanical engineering courses, as well as others, will allow students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience. I believe that the best experience that anyone can obtain exists in two places: the classroom and the real world.
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| (Sept. 2007) Cardinal Formula Race Team won 2nd place out of 16 schools at the University of Toronto Shootout. CFR Team members include: Heui, Don Schlaud, Andrew Smith, Mike Wyciechowski, Heather Fondriest, and Ryan Smith. |
Sincerely,
Heather Fondriest
Mechanical Engineering Student
Controls Team Manager CFR Race Team