UC Design and Engineering Programs Earn Accolades at 2013 PACE Global Forum

The 2013 PACE (Partners of Advanced Collaborative Engineering Education) Global Annual Forum

"

Creativity Fueling Transportation Innovation" was held July 21-26 in Pasadena, Calif.

At the forum, the University of Cincinnati was awarded PACE Silver Certification. This award was based on the College of Engineering and Applied Science’s (CEAS) and the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning’s (DAAP) work on furthering the PACE mission, and for their collaborative student projects. The University of Cincinnati is among the first of PACE institutions to receive this award.

In addition to the silver certification award, UC’s engineering and industrial design global collaborative team of faculty and students won an award for

“

Third Ready for Production” for the Portable Assisted Mobility Device (PAMD) Global Competition. 

Seven global collaborative teams competed in this competition, each consisting of four to five universities from around the world. UC participated as one of these teams and worked on the PAMD project this past academic year.

The team included three different disciplines:

• Engineering, led by UC PACE Integrator Professor Sam Anand from mechanical engineering.
• Industrial design, led by UC PACE Integrator Professor Brigid O’Kane from DAAP.
• Graphic communications, led by UC Assistant Professor Ben Meyer from DAAP.

This global team collaboration also included engineers from three other universities, including Germany and the United States, as well as six UC mechanical engineering students, 13 DAAP industrial design students, and numerous engineering students from Michigan Technological University, and RWTH Aachen University and Technische Universität-Darmstadt in Germany.

The PAMD global project results were presented at the forum by industrial design senior Heesung Jang, UC 2013 mechanical engineering graduate Adam Curtis, and 11 other engineering students from Germany who participated on this international collaborative team.

UC professors and students also gave presentations at the forum. These presentations included:

• Optimization of Automobile Assembly Process to Reduce Assembly Time and Costs, presented by Neeraj Panhalkar and co-authored by Ratnadeep Paul and Professor Sam Anand from CEAS.

• Advancing the Concept Development Process with Strategic Approaches to Powerful Collaborative Teamwork, presented by Professor Brigid O’Kane and co-authored by Professor Ben Meyer from the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

• Has Digital Clay Finally Arrived? Testing Advances in Polygonal Modeling Software for Application in Automotive Design, presented by Professor Raphael Zammit and Juan Antonio Islas Munoz from the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

PhD student and PACE TA Neeraj Panhalkar won the award for “Best Manufacturing Presentation” for his presentation on “Optimization of Automobile Assembly Process to reduce assembly time and costs,” which focused on developing optimal assembly procedures for automobile assembly. Panhalkar, Anand, and Paul have been invited by PACE to submit a manuscript to a PACE special issue of “Computer Aided Design and Applications” journal based on winning the presentation.

In addition to winning these awards and presenting important findings during the forum,  the University of Cincinnati is encouraged by PACE representatives to host a future PACE Global Annual Forum in 2015 or 2017. Professors Sam Anand and Brigid O'Kane have begun the competitive application process to be reviewed by PACE delegates.

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Photography Note