The Keney Memorial Clock Tower in Hartford. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
UConn seniors Henry Courchaine \u201919 (ENG), Garrett Murphy \u201919 (ENG), and Spencer Padget \u201919 (ENG) worked with the city\u2019s administration and the nonprofit groups to get the bells ringing again. Jacob Parent, a student at Quinebaug Valley Community College, also participated in the project in the fall semester of 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe first saw the clock tower in about mid-September,\u201d said Murphy. \u201cOur first goal when we got the project was total evaluation. There weren\u2019t any up-to-date specs or drawings on it, so we had to go in there and say, ok, what\u2019s missing, what\u2019s not working, what is working. And we found a lot of stuff that wasn\u2019t working.\u201d<\/p>\n
That evaluation initially involved both inspection and contemplation \u2013 including many hours spent staring at the mechanisms, taking notes, estimating the distance between components, and determining the pieces needed to restore the clock\u2019s operation.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of our goals was to try to maintain as much of the existing mechanical components as possible from the original design so it still had that old charm to it, but updating the electronics and fixing and repairing whatever needed to be fixed so that it can run smoothly going forward,\u201d said Courchaine. \u201cThis involved a lot of investigation \u2013 pulling things apart, seeing what\u2019s wrong, and going from there. There have been a number of modifications to the tower over the years, so we pieced together what we could from different designs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two of the clock\u2019s faces had seized, leaving the hands unable to turn, and the historic chimes and bells had been disconnected. An electric motor \u2013 added during the earlier restoration to modernize the original weighted mechanism of the clock \u2013 would smoke when fired up, and the control panel showed signs of a short circuit as well. The earlier renovations to the tower had also involved disconnecting the weighted mechanisms that manually operated the chimes, replacing them instead with a computerized speaker system; the students worked to restore operation of the original, historic bells.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely a little bit of a scavenger hunt,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cOh, what\u2019s going on over here? That\u2019s broken. What\u2019s going on over here? That\u2019s broken.\u201d<\/p>\n
The students\u2019 advisor, mechanical engineering faculty member Tom Mealy \u201908 (ENG), inspected the clock tower last year before Senior Design\u2019s administrators accepted the project for the program. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things, like opening a Pandora\u2019s Box,\u201d he said. \u201c[The students] did a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n
No historical plans or schematics existed to guide the students\u2019 efforts; missing linkage arms and other parts needed to be designed from scratch and fabricated out of modern materials to complement the existing 19th-century mechanisms. 3D printing technology allowed the team to design parts on campus in Storrs, and then test fit them at the tower before creating permanent pieces out of metal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really breaking it into components,\u201d said Padget. \u201cOnce this is spinning, what mechanically needs to happen? Alright, if that\u2019s spinning, what drives it to spin? Alright, and how are we going to control when it spins?\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior Design is a hallmark of the School of Engineering’s undergraduate programs. The two-semester course \u2013 a graduation requirement \u2013 engages students as teams that work to solve real-life engineering problems for mostly industry sponsors. Students learn and experience the importance of schedules, communication, budget constraints, and customer expectations.<\/p>\n
Professor Vito Moreno \u201973 MS, \u201985 Ph.D., who directs the Senior Design program for the Department of Mechanical Engineering, said the Keney Clock Tower was the most sought-after project in this year\u2019s program.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our [mechanical engineering] senior class this year we had 178 students, and they all vote on which projects they want to work on,\u201d Moreno said. \u201cThis project was the number one project. A third of the class actually wanted to work on this project, so these guys were pretty lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Mealy, \u201cI think they\u2019re going to get an A.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the students, the hands-on development of pragmatic solutions to the Keney Tower\u2019s engineering challenges \u2013 as well as the community aspect of the project \u2013 was a large part of the project\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the idea that every time I drive through Hartford, I\u2019ll be able to point at the clock and say, \u2018I had a little piece in that,\u2019\u201d said Courchaine.<\/p>\n
Project sponsor Henry Hester, vice president of the Friends of Keney Park, said it\u2019s his hope that the clock tower\u2019s restoration will help bring alive the story of Henry Keney and his lasting influence on the city of Hartford.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all about creating an energy and keeping people awakened to the history, because there\u2019s a lot of history in Hartford,\u201d Hester said. \u201cWe can see the passion that Henry Keney had for the city, and see his timeline and what he did for the city, giving us the 693 acre park \u2026 Basically, bring it back to life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the fact that, having UConn on board, you bring youth ingenuity, and I think it can be an awakening for other youth in Hartford who see kids doing this kind of work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Keney Memorial Clock Tower is an impressive example of the role that an anchor institution like UConn can play when community partnerships are well maintained and the right people at UConn are listening to what the community has to say,\u201d said Julia Yakovich, UConn\u2019s director of service learning initiatives, who brought the project to the Senior Design program. Service learning, she added, \u201cenables faculty and students to activate their coursework into sophisticated problem-solving with and for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yakovich said that plans for a second phase of the project \u2013 which she hopes will engage UConn landscaping students to revamp the park surrounding the tower and UConn electrical engineering students to explore installing solar panels to power the tower and lighting systems in the park \u2013 are currently under discussion.<\/p>\n
Listen to Julie Bartucca of UConn 360 podcast speaking with some of the participants in this project:<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\nhttps:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/KeneyClockTowerPodcast.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n <\/p>\n
For full episodes of the UConn 360 podcast, visit <\/em>uconn.edu\/uconn360-podcast<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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