September 19, 2011 - 12:40am
Engineering officials celebrate Gorguze Family Laboratory dedication
BY GIACOMO BOLOGNA
Faculty, students, and Engineering project teams gathered on Friday to celebrate the dedication of the Gorguze Family Laboratory.
The laboratory’s expansion — funded by a $5 million dollar donation from 1941 alum Vincent Gorguze — was celebrated with speeches by Gorguze himself, College of Engineering Dean David Munson, College of Engineering Associate Dean James Holloway and Chris Hilger, business director of the University's Solar Car Team.
Holloway said the expansion will increase the opportunities students have to participate in experiential learning.
Doubling the size of what was formerly the Wilson Student Team Project Center, the 20,000-square-foot Gorguze building will house student Engineering teams, Holloway said. The building will also be used for classes and the Engineering branch of the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching.
While the addition was completed last winter, it wasn't until the summer that the University's Board of Regents accepted the building’s name change.
According to Engineering junior Aaron Frantz, interim operations director of the Solar Car Team, the biggest problem the Solar Car Team faced was a lack of workspace. Frantz said that since the 1990s, the team has been working off-campus in Ypsilanti.
With the new space, the team can now take full advantage of the machine shop in the Gorguze Family Laboratory and the staff who work there, Frantz said. In fact, the variety of resources allowed the team to finish their first car, Quantum, with enough time to work on a duplicate spare car, which is not typical for the team.
“By finishing the car so early, our design team had chances to make substantial engineering improvements,” Frantz said.
Members of the Solar Car Team departed on Sept. 11 for the 1,800 mile World Solar Challenge in Australia.
