This award will establish a new Engineering Project Center in Wuhan, China to provide international research experiences for up to 30 U.S. undergraduates in mechanical engineering to complete an international design and manufacturing operations project during their senior year. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) faculty and undergraduates will form project-based teams pairing undergraduates and faculty from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in Wuhan, China. Under the joint guidance of WPI and HUST faculty, U.S. and Chinese student teams will address "real-world" technical engineering challenges in areas such as lean manufacturing implementation, automated packaging devices design and optimization for supplier-based manufacturing, among others. Students from both sides will undergo cultural and language preparation, and conduct preliminary analyses prior to departing WPI for Wuhan for 8-week experiences in China addressing public and private sector manufacturing problems.
