Satellite designers win award
By MARISA OLIVER
The James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation honored recent Santa Clara graduates Dina Hadi and Theresa Kuhlman with a $750 Silver Award for the entry of their thesis paper, Design of a Picosatellite.
Hadi and Kuhlman were two members of the Artemis team, an all-female team named after the Greek goddess of the moon, that built three satellites, all smaller than a cigarette pack, to be launched at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc, Calif. The Artemis team built the satellites as part of their senior design project.
"We turned it in at the last minute," Hadi said of the winning paper. "We won the silver and $750 to split."
Mechanical Engineering Department Chair Tim Hight is very excited about the success of Kuhlman and Hadi.
"A number of students won awards last year," Hight said. "They [Hadi and Kuhlman] won the highest. We also had two Merit Awards. In the last 10 years, I've seen 93 senior projects and had 15 Merit Awards, four bronze, two silver, one gold and one Best of Program. We've done pretty well."
The mechanical engineering department also won a $250 grant for the silver award to further the department's academic goals.
Lincoln Electric Company established the James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation in 1936. The intention of the foundation was to advance the science and application of arc welding. The awards have been handed out annually for the last 63 years to those who have proven superior achievement in the field of arc welding.
Senior design projects take over the lives of engineering majors. It consists of three two-unit courses in the engineering department lasting through fall, winter and spring quarters. The work is intense and the satisfaction comes from having a final project that works. There are inter-department awards that are given to best of session and a best overall senior design. Winning awards is a nice bonus, but not the top concern of most graduating seniors."It's not really a priority," senior engineering major Marc Bertone said. "The main priority is to graduate."
The goal for the Artemis team has extended far past graduating and has become launching their satellites. The launch was scheduled for August and has been postponed several times, including two weeks ago when that launch was canceled with two minutes left on the clock.
The satellites were launched last night at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc, Calif.