The future should be bright for a couple of Andrews University engineering students from Berrien Springs following their victory at the 2019 Stryker Engineering Challenge with a couple of other teammates from other schools.
In competition last Friday, March 22nd, Jeremy Barrett and Devin Garcia from Andrews University teamed up with Denise Roorda from Calvin College in Grand Rapids and Joshua Cormier from the University of Detroit Mercy in taking on multiple other teams from both Michigan and Indiana. Together, the quartet comprised the Michigan Colleges Alliance — or simply the MCA — Team that went on to victory in Kalamazoo.
The MCA team competed against teams from the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Michigan Technological University, Western Michigan University, the University of Notre Dame and Purdue University.
The University Recruiting department at Stryker Medical in Kalamazoo held the 9th annual Stryker Engineering Challenge last Thursday and Friday, as teams of four sophomore engineering students competed against each other for the opportunity to earn a $1,000 scholarship and an interview for a Stryker internship position for the summer of 2020. MCA has been invited to send a team to the competition for the past four years dating back to 2015.
The challenge began around 7 pm Thursday evening, and all work concluded at 1:45 pm on Friday. The competition portion of the challenge then got underway at 2:30 pm on Friday. The main part of the challenge was to design a remotely-controlled vehicle from a supplied build kit. That vehicle was then used in a 30-minute competitions where all teams worked simultaneously to pick up Lego people, then in an obstacle course race where two to three teams raced at a time to see who could complete the course at the fastest speed. Each team was required to use three different drivers throughout the race.
In addition to the competition, the teams could collect points on technical challenges before the competition and on homework that was collected around noon on Friday.
The MCA team was second overall after the homework and technical challenges, trailing Michigan State by 13 points. However, during the pick-up competition, MCA took the lead and was 24 points ahead of Michigan Tech before the obstacle race. Western won that race followed by Michigan Tech and MCA, resulting in MCA winning the challenge overall by a single point over Michigan Tech.
Gunnar Lovhoiden, served as the MCA team sponsor. Lovhoiden is Professor of Engineering at Andrews University, and supported Andrews students at the competition. He says, “The MCA team worked really well together and maximized their performance by making good design decisions.”
Hyun Kwon, Chair of the Andrews University Department of Engineering, adds, “I am so proud of our students. They have proven the ability to successfully compete at such a high level and against much larger schools.”
To learn more about the Andrews University Department of Engineering, you can visit online at the link below:
http://andrews.edu/cas/engineering
Founded in 1874, Andrews University is the flagship institution of higher education for the Seventh-day Adventist Church and offers more than 200 areas of study, including advanced degrees. The main campus is in Berrien Springs, but the University also provides instruction at colleges and universities in more than 19 countries around the world.
In the photo accompanying this story on Moody on the Market provided by Andrews University with photo credit to Gunnar Lovhoiden are, from left to right: Joshua Cormier, University of Detroit Mercy…Denise Roorda, Calvin College…Jeremy Barrett and Devin Garcia, Andrews University.
