Pneumatic Lab Capstone Profile: Justin Laird

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For colleges, designing and implementing a new curriculum can be hugely time consuming, full of unforeseen details and difficulties to be tackled by a large team. But for a team of four, the task seems almost impossible, requiring a daunting amount of work and dedication to a project of its importance.

Justin Laird, a senior at Purdue University, is no stranger to hard work – he’s a double major in mechanical engineering technology and manufacturing engineering technology. It doesn’t stop there, though: He’s also a member of Habitat for Humanity and the Theta Xi fraternity, as well as a volunteer pole vault coach for Lawrence North High School in his hometown of Indianapolis.

Other than that, Laird has plenty of free time.

As secretary for the group working on designing and building an educational package for Purdue, Laird said that he wants to get more hands-on experience its pneumatic components. “This is something that is definitely missing in current fluid power labs,” Laird wrote in November.

“I’m hoping to understand fluid power concepts better myself,” he continued. “I am also interested in making an impact in the realm of student learning for fluid power concepts.”

While the task seems tough, Laird is thankful for the support of his teammates and the help he’s receiving from Proportion-Air.

“The best part of this project has been being able to work with Proportion-Air,” Laird stated. Specifically, Laird wrote that he enjoyed creating working prototypes when the team visited Proportion-Air in Florida last month.

And when the team gets stuck in the process, Laird says he feels comfortable shooting the issue over to a member of the Proportion-Air team.

“What has surprised me the most is how easy it is working with the Proportion-Air engineers.”

Laird’s biggest concern? Time management. “There is much to do to complete this project adequately and to the best of our abilities.”

Looking at Laird’s extensive activity list, we are confident he can make it work.

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