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Students Contest for Grades
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 Kaan Doğan and Berkan Dilek, both first-year students in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, took first place in the Electro-Magnetic Ball Gun Contest held at the end of the last semester. The contest was organized by Dr. Levent Onural, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Every year, Dr. Onural arranges a similar contest for the first-year students as an assignment that counts as 60 percent towards their final grade in the course. The contest consists of designing and building an instrument, and then testing it in a competitive environment. The whole process requires knowledge, a lot of creativity, and the ability to work in a team. It also allows students to measure themselves against others in applying their skills to the solution of a practical problem.
The objective of the Electromagnetic Ball Gun Contest was to propel an iron ball as high up on an angled plane as possible. Fifty groups of two students each were formed by last name. The teams had one month to design and construct their instruments. All of them then gathered together in one classroom to compete and determine the winners. Using the mechanisms they had made, students tried to "shoot" the same iron ball up an inclined surface the farthest. Kaan and Berkan, whose winning distance was 50 cm, received as their prize an "A" in the course and their names mentioned, of course, in Bilkent News!
When asked what he thought of the contest, Kaan said, "We will be doing design work in the future as electrical and electronics engineers. This was real practice that contributes towards our careers." Berkan added, "I enjoyed working on this project because I am very keen on physics and mathematics. That is actually why I have chosen to become an engineer, besides the many job opportunities, of course!" Dr. Onural said, "An early introduction to the design process, which is the heart of engineering, motivates the students. And motivation is the key to helping them overcome the difficulties of the long education ahead."
Feyza Barutçu (IR/II)
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