STILLWATER, Okla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oklahoma State University’s ENDEAVOR is the glass and steel embodiment of a new era in undergraduate engineering learning, where walls no longer exist between disciplines and individual expertise is melded into interdisciplinary teams.
The new 72,000-square-foot hands-on laboratory center will be dedicated Sept. 22.
“This one-of-a-kind laboratory is a shining example of Oklahoma State’s commitment to academic excellence and student discovery,” said OSU President Burns Hargis. “We owe a huge thanks to the many donors who saw the vision for this facility and helped make it a reality.”
Donors paid for half of the cost of the $35 million facility.
Dr. Paul J. Tikalsky, dean of OSU’s College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology, said, “The United States must move from the 20th-century vision of infrastructure — platforms for planes, trains and automobiles — to 21st-century platforms that support cyber, analytics, mobility, logistics, energy, water, education and economic engines.
“Oklahoma State University has partnered with several of the nation’s leaders in energy and aerospace to launch the ENDEAVOR initiative, making it a place where interdisciplinary faculty can present engineering principles, advanced process and manufacturing technologies, and entrepreneurship in exciting ways.”
ENDEAVOR allows undergraduate students to apply classroom theories through hands-on, student-developed and faculty-mentored projects, which boasts state-of-the-art equipment and instruments. No equipment is off-limits, and all OSU students are welcome. Laboratory classes focus on areas such as mechatronics, robotics, digital manufacturing, fluid and aero dynamics, thermodynamics, materials, sustainable building, sensors and electronics, energy systems and radio communications.
ENDEAVOR is a learning tool in and of itself, with visible elevator components, exposed structural design and visible utilities.
“We are leading a new age of education for undergraduate students,” Tikalsky said.
Three floors of labs and makerspaces for innovation, assembly and fabrication include industry-aligned labs, sponsored by corporations. Industrial partners assign and support interdisciplinary projects to fourth-year students and mentor them through design, prototyping and testing.
Industry donors include Chesapeake Energy, Valero, ExxonMobil, Devon Energy, National Instruments, Shimadzu, Williams Cos., McAlpine Energy, ONEOK, NorthStar Battery and others. Alumni also helped make the project possible.
“We put the future in ENDEAVOR,” Tikalsky said. “This laboratory takes classic engineering principles and delivers them in a new, hands-on approach.”