Cal Poly Pomona is known for its hands on aspect with regards to student education. The College educates engineers and technologists to meet increasingly complex technical challenges critical in assuring the future prosperity of California through technological advancement. We are very proud of our 40 years of providing a quality education. We are the largest engineering college in Southern California and the principal producer of engineers (600+ annually) in nine disciplines. We supply one in every 14 engineers in California, and all eligible programs are nationally accredited.

The Mechanical Engineering Department prides itself in offering its students the unique opportunity to engineer, design, build and test various projects. Senior/Special projects range from designing and building new experiments for one of our many required laboratories, to personal projects conceived and designed by the individual student. Some of the more challenging design projects include the Human Powered Submarine, as well as the SAE Formula car, Mini-Baja, and Supermileage vehicle. The SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Projects are unique with international competitions held yearly where up to 100 universities from around the world compete. Competitions are between three and five days and go through a rigorous array of static and dynamic events. Cal Poly Pomona has always performed extremely well in the Formula, Baja, and Supermileage events.

The projects mentioned are possible due to the Mechanical Engineering Department’s devotion to providing and maintaining a lab for student use. This lab provides students a facility in which to actively develop, design, fabricate, and test these projects. The facility consists of basic machine shop equipment including vertical and horizontal milling machines, engine lathes, grinders, tooling, as well as welding equipment and hand tools.

THE FOLLOWING IS A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE NEEDS FOR OUR FACILITY:Bridgeport (or equivalent quality) vertical milling machines with digital readouts
Engine lathes with digital readouts (Le Blonde, Clausing, Makino)
3 – axis CNC milling machine (Cincinnati, Fadal, Haas, Okuma)
Also, any miscellaneous tooling including clamp sets, collet sets, milling vises, rotary tables, toolholders, v-blocks, gage blocks, granite tables, as well as a variety of cutting tools including endmills, drills, reamers, cutters, etc.Measurement tools needed include:
Dial test and travel indicators
Combination square sets, rules, bevel protractors, etc.Hand tools needed include complete sets of quality mechanics tools such as Craftsman, Snap-On, Mac, etc. These would provide a great boost for the students.Student activities in the Project area encompass a large cross-section of the College population. Though anchored by the Mechanical Engineering Department, there are regularly team members from all Engineering disciplines on campus, which include Manufacturing, Civil, Electrical, Chemical, Industrial, Aerospace, and Engineering Technology. Our Baja team for the last few years has incorporated students from the College of Business to help with marketing and fund raising activities. The obvious advantage of the Projects lab operations is the incorporation of different fields of study in an integrated project, which has proven instrumental in getting students prepared for industry by having them deal with one another on a professional level.

The solution to the tool and equipment problem lies in industry partners, a public-private relationship. Partnering with the Mechanical Engineering Projects lab means genuine and intimate involvement in providing future engineers with experienced practical education. An engineer with a strong theoretical background as well as the skills and knowledge of practical application is what today’s industry seriously needs. Industry partnerships are a critical investment in the future of the technical community in California.

We would like anyone to strongly consider investing in Cal Poly Pomona to create a facility that will greatly enhance our students engineering education. In exchange we would be glad to provide feedback to your R&D department, media releases to on and off campus publications, invitations to special events by the Dean of Engineering and the University President, increased exposure of your product line to future purchasers, and a field test site for your products.

As a Faculty member in the Mechanical Engineering Department and the lab director for the Projects facility, I invite you to contact me at any time for more information regarding our facility.

Clifford M. Stover
Mechanical Engineering Department

Email: cmstover@csupomona.edu

Faculty Webpage: www.csupomona.edu/~cmstover