Fleet Readiness Center East hosted administrators and students from East Carolina University Jan. 16-17 to strength­en the longstanding partnership in devel­oping future engineers.

Harry Ploehn, ECU College of Engi­neering and Technology dean, and Barba­ra Muller-Borer, Engineering Department chairperson, visited FRC East Jan. 16, and six senior class engineering students who are working on a capstone project visited the following day.

“We’re always looking to build. We want to have more ECU engineering grads here,” Ploehn said. “We want to be able to help and support FRC East in any way we can, and we are producing qual­ity and a quantity of great engineers for (the organization).”

Ploehn and Muller-Borer received an overview briefing before touring the fa­cility. The administrators were able to see depot operations, get an informed look at engineering workloads and jobs and engage ECU alumni along the way.

“It helps us to see the nuts and bolts of what you do to be able to understand how we can help (FRC East) best,” said Ploehn of the reason for the visit. “… Just seeing the breadth of capabilities, understanding the kinds job functions … really what is (the) business and what are needs of (the) organization.”

Muller-Borer added that the trip in­formed their awareness “to be able to better prepare our students.”

According to Mark Meno Research and Engineering group head, FRC East’s relationship with the university spans about a decade, and the organization is benefitting from a portfolio of outreach and engagement efforts that have at­tracted ECU alumni.

“We have 70 Pirates graduates on the engineering and logistics team, in large part, due to efforts in collaboration with the engineering program at ECU,” Meno said. “Those include a number of sponsored capstone senior design proj­ects, employer panel discussions with students, and FRC East Pirates personally recruiting their fellow Pirates to this pur­poseful job in service to the defense of our nation.”

As the ECU administrators expanded their awareness of FRC East, a group of their students took a similar opportunity to broaden their knowledge for their se­nior project, which is to design a solution to replace the existing method or system for blade failure detection on CH/MH-53E helicopters.

Members from the Research and Engi­neering group gave the students an over­view and orientation tour of FRC East. It offered a close-up look at the aircraft and systems relative to the project, as well as made them aware of how engineers in­teract in the work process at the aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul depot.

“Being able to come through and go through the tour makes the project more real,” said Jesse Ham, avionics engineer for the MQ-8 Fire Scout Fleet Support Team. “It really shows the hands-on op­portunities the engineers get here.”

“The classroom briefing (at ECU) about our capstone project specifications was broad,” said Betsy Hoss, who is seek­ing a Bachelor of Science in bio-medical engineering. “Here, we can see how the blades are worked on … seeing this in ac­tion is better than reading about it.”

Ham said the overarching goal of the capstone project is to give the students an abbreviated, real-world engineering experience, while enhancing things such as problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, project management, interpersonal relations, and technical skills.

“Our visit here today and the face-to-face conversations with Jesse helped us better understand what we’re tasked to do in our project, which is designing and/ or replacing some outdated systems on the blade-failure-detection system on the CH-53 and MH-53 helicopters,” said Cam­den McCall, who is seeking a Bachelor’s of Science in electrical engineering.

“Today’s visit helped me get a better idea of what capstone is really about,” he added.  “As a freshman, it seemed very daunting.  Now, it’s exciting and achievable.”

The capstone project will be completed in December.

The administrators emphasized how the engagement with FRC East benefits students in the engineering and technology program.

“It really has been a great relationship … and has continued to grow,” Muller-Borer said, giving mention to longtime engineering advisory board member Chris Holder.  “They come and they help us to identify what we can improve in our curriculum and we listen to them, and they’re not that far away. Our students look forward to coming here to work.”

“The program has many capstone teams where our seniors come and do projects at FRC East,” Ploehn said, “and that’s tremendous
experience for them. It’s preparing them and bringing them up to a level where they are able to hit the ground running when they enter full-time employment, whether it’s here or in industry or wherever they go.”