Students present capstone projects proving course concepts
McHenry, MD – Differential equations aren’t normally considered exciting.
Unless you’re at Garrett College.
Three students taking Differential Equations with Assistant Professor Bryan Lewis presented their course projects to faculty, staff, and administrators last Thursday.
“This is totally nontraditional for differential equations classes,” said Lewis. “In classic differential equations, you learn the math; in this course students actually use it. It’s great to have the flexibility to use that approach.”
Sophomore Everett Nichols created a building model to explain a mass damper spring system’s practical applications.
“In my model, the building has a pendulum attached to the top of it, and the spring system represents the shaking force that makes it move side to side from wind or from an earthquake,” explained Nichols. “The pendulum at the top acts like a counterweight – a tuned mass damper – swinging in the opposite direction to reduce the building’s motion and help it stay more stable.”
While Nichols was interested in reducing destruction, Parker Ferraro decided to break some glass – with sound waves.
“I just thought the idea of resonance was the most interesting concept in the class,” said Ferraro, referring to the phenomenon that occurs when a system or object is driven to oscillate at its natural frequency. This results in a significant increase in amplitude – and a lot of broken glass when that glass is subject to certain frequencies.
“It’s fascinating to me that a bridge or a building – or glass – can self-destruct based on frequency,” said Ferraro.
Elijah Hansen’s project focused on image-restoration techniques. While he demonstrated the principle with basic photographic images, Hansen noted there are more important applications for this activity.
“Restoration tools are used in medical technology to provide doctors with better images of medical conditions,” said Hansen, who is planning to pursue a career as an MRI field service engineer.
