“Apollo” Valves engineers meet with the student design team during the Senior Design Expo on May 6 at UNC Charlotte. The team is designing and building a new backflow test stand.
“Apollo” Valves has teamed up with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to sponsor a senior design project for students in the William States Lee College of Engineering.
The six-student team, consisting of both mechanical and electrical engineers, has been tasked with designing and building a new backflow test stand for “Apollo’s” Pageland, South Carolina, plant. Students spent the Spring 2019 semester designing the test stand, and they will build it during the Fall 2019 semester.
In May, the student team presented their design to “Apollo” engineers and other participants in the program during the Senior Design Expo held at the university. The presentation included the design for a test stand that will be used to conduct Reduced Pressure Principle Assembly and Double Check Valve Assembly tests automatically. The stand will capture test results electronically and store those results in a database.
After hearing the presentation, the “Apollo” engineering department is confident that the students are ready to build the test stand next school year. About 80% of the prototype will be built in the first five weeks of the Fall 2019 semester, and the student engineers will use the remainder of the year to tweak, test, and perfect the test stand. Students will then present their final prototype to “Apollo.”
“Apollo” Valves was first approached for this project during a UNCC career fair last year. Jim Hartman, Director of the Industrial Solutions Laboratory at UNCC, pitched the sponsorship idea, and “Apollo” engineers jumped at the opportunity.
“The engineering team is excited to help support future engineers and UNC Charlotte’s engineering school, especially since many of us graduated from there,” said “Apollo” project engineer Stephanie Cellemme.
“Apollo” is one of 50 local companies sponsoring a project this semester. Other participants include Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, Duke Energy, Lowe’s, Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, and NASA.