An excellent engineering program requires up-to-date technology and tools. By making improvements to the Herak Center for Engineering and building the new PACCAR Center for Applied Science, we are demonstrating our commitment to quality engineering education.

 In the process of renovating Herak Center, laboratories were upgraded and equipped with the latest technological tools, classrooms were redesigned for flexible and efficient learning, and a stimulating and aesthetically pleasing environment was created which will be conducive to learning.

Herak Center for Engineering

Phase I changes to the Herak Center for Engineering were completed in November 2002. Over 400 engineering students and nearly 20 faculty members are now enjoying 7,000 new square feet of usable program space, which includes a hydrology lab, student project lab, two new 40-seat classrooms and a seminar room.

The expansion, reconfiguration, and update of six labs on the first and second floors are creating a more functional, learning environment. Expansion of the north lobby to accommodate student breakout spaces and project displays, along with the addition of faculty offices are the other visible changes to the building. Behind the scenes, upgraded electrical and electronic infrastructure throughout the building includes a higher speed internal computer network system to meet current and future needs of all building users. 

Herak Center for Engineering now contains eight labs for students.  In addition to computer labs for students, there are environmental, computer, power and mechanical labs for students to work hands-on with the best equipment for their field of study.

Mechanical Engineering   

Mechanical Engineering Lab

Herak 122 is a laboratory facility for the study of mechanical measurements and instrumentation. Equipment includes:A low-speed wind tunnel;an engines laboratory with turbine, Rankine, and reciprocation piston engines;apparatuses for the study of hydraulic turbines, fans, fins, electric motors, PLC, and strength of materials;and an electronics lab for the study of data acquisition and signal conditioning circuitry.

Manufacturing Processes Lab

Herak 116 houses a laboratory facility for the study of manufacturing processes. Equipment includes: Sheet metal shear, rollers, notcher, and punch press;manual and CNC milling machines and lathes;plastics injection molding machine; grinders; welding hood; rapid prototyping (i.e., 3-D printer); metrology equipment including coordinate measuring machine; and robotics.

Civil Engineering

Construction Materials Lab

This lab allows the measurement of the properties of common construction materials which is important to insure that those materials can meet the applicable code and specifications.  Material measurements are made on steel, concrete, timber, brick, block, and aluminum.  

Environmental Engineering Lab

Students in this lab use the fundamental principles of environmental chemistry and various analytical techniques to quantify the types and significance of natural and man-made contaminants. 

Soil Mechanics Lab

Students study the properties and behavior of soils (sand, gravel, silt and clay) under various environmental conditions.  The study includes weight-volume relations, soil classifications, soil compaction, seepage through porous media, consolidation, shear strength, lateral pressures and slope stability.  Laboratory and field methods for evaluation of pertinent properties that are used in analysis and design  of structures and foundations. 

Dr. Bormann demonstrates the Water Resources lab to visiting middle schoolers during a recent "On to College" tour. The students visited School of Engineering and Applied Science labs to see the kinds of hands-on experiments they would conduct in the engineering program at GU.

Water Resources Lab

This lab provides students an opportunity to study precipitation, infiltration and runoff using watershed characteristics;  the behavior characteristics of pumps, turbulent flow of water in pipes and open channels; and flow measurements in channels, pipes and engineered structures.

Electrical Engineering

Controls Lab

Herak 208 houses a controls laboratory where students conduct exercises, based on time and frequency domain system analysis techniques, are used to model physical systems typical of control systems. The students analyze a moving-coil permanent-magnet dc motor and a pulse-width modulation amplifier in order to derive a (linearized) working model.

Automation Lab

The Automation Lab in Herak 100 is where electrical and computer engineering students learn how to use programmable logic controllers (PLC) to automate manufacturing equipment and systems. Students use a variety of PLC programming languages such as ladder, state logic and grafcet.

Electric Circuits Lab

In Herak 214, students learn the fundamental concepts of electric circuit measurements, understand the main features of power supply sources, analog and digital multimeters, and learn how to operate and use the signal generator and the oscilloscope.

Communications Lab

Also held in Herak 208, students conduct experiments in a communication lab where they become acquainted with oscilloscopes, signal generators and spectrum analyzers. Measurement of common signals such as sinusoids and periodic square waves are conducted in both the time and frequency domain. The training and experience that EE students gain in this laboratory enhance their understanding of analog and digital communication systems.

Electronics Lab The Electronics Laboratory in Herak 204 teaches students to deal with non-linear and active components, including rectifying and zener diodes, operational amplifiers, and bipolar junction and field effect transistors. Students learn to characterize these components and to design and analyze circuits containing them.

 

Computer Engineering

Digital Logic Lab

The Digital Logic Lab in Herak 100 is where electrical and computer engineering students gain practical"hands-on" experience on the use of basic hardware components. Through experiments, students become familiar with gates, multiplexers, decoders, flip-flops, counters, registers and displays.

 Embedded Computer Systems Lab

An embedded computer systems is a compact implementation of hardware and software functions with a micro-controller so as to meet the specifications for a specific application. Students receive hands-on experience working with embedded systems in Herak 204.

Microcomputer Lab Students gain practical, "hands on" and design experience with Motorola's popular 68HC11 micro-controller.  Students incorporate microcomputer devices with software polling routines and interrupts to build simple calculators, clocks and other hardware.

Microcomputer Laboratory

In Herak 202, students use a 68HC11 microcomputer that is interfaced to a variety of devices each requiring one of the standard codes for information transfer.

Computer Science

The Department of Computer Science operates two labs in Herak, along with a dedicated server housed elsewhere on campus.  The server is an HP Proliant running Redhat EL5, capable of handling 50 users concurrently and used only by the computer science department.  The Senior Lab contains 12 networked computers running a mix of Windows XP and CentOS 5 Linux.  This is where seniors work on their senior software engineering projects.  The General Computing Lab contains 30 machines running Linux and Windows.  This lab is available only to students registered for computer science courses.

The Engineering Machine Shop provides support to faculty research, CED projects, and club projects. Here Mechanical Technician John Cadwell shows Middle School students how a jet fuel engine works.

PACCAR Center for Applied Science

The PACCAR Center for Applied Science was completed in time for student and faculty use by the start of the 2008 fall semester. This beautiful, three-story building is located directly to the south of the existing Herak Center for Engineering, and houses our rapidly developing program in Transmission and Distribution (T&D) Engineering.

PACCAR’s 29,000 square feet of space will provide many resources for the School of Engineering and Applied Science, including much-needed classrooms (a total of nine, all with multimedia capabilities) and laboratory facilities. The $8.5 million building will have a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green rating of “Silver Status”.   

According to the building architects, “A vital part of the building’s mission is to honor Green Building Practices. The building is intended to be a demonstration site for engineering principles that promote energy conservation and sustainability in design and construction practices. Strategies include management of natural daylight and solar gain along with employing systems that make efficient use of resources and the integration of renewable, recyclable materials.”

Avista T&D Power Laboratory

Housing new power system simulation equipment worth approximately $550,000, the lab provides students a unique opportunity to model and study power system behavior.  Experiments include modeling a small individual power system, synchronizing two or more systems, power transfer between systems, connection and operation of protective devices, and dynamic system behavior under fault conditions.

Intel Computer Cluster (Click here for our website)

The School of Engineering and Applied Science received a large donation of network servers and components ($778,000) from Intel. The Intel gift will be part of the Intel Corporation Computational Science Laboratory (ICCSL) and will provide a state-of-the-art computational presence that undergraduate students will be able to use for research.

The ICCSL will provide the computational tools necessary for faculty and students at Gonzaga University to fulfill their research agenda and plan larger scale research in the future.

Robotics

Room 106 in PACCAR houses the Sensor Networks and Robotics Laboratory (SNARL). SNARL provides students with a hands-on facility for both school-related and research projects in sensors, computer vision, and robotics. The lab includes a Puma 560 robot arm, multiple BOEBot and Surveyor mobile robots, a wide array of sensors, and video capture and video processing equipment.

SNARL allows students to work with various robotic and artificial intelligence applications.