{"id":252537,"date":"2026-09-08T07:15:03","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=252537"},"modified":"2026-09-02T14:56:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T18:56:32","slug":"students-help-students-in-hands-on-chemical-engineering-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2026\/09\/students-help-students-in-hands-on-chemical-engineering-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Help Students in Hands-on Chemical Engineering Course"},"content":{"rendered":"

A student-led instructional laboratory build course\u00a0offers hands-on experience for students\u00a0looking to leave a legacy behind for future\u00a0classmates.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The CHEG\u00a0<\/span>Educational Laboratory: Modular Pipe Rack Design, Build, Test<\/span>\u00a0course is now\u00a0entering its third\u00a0year, and\u00a0is an elective for students\u00a0within the\u00a0Department of Chemical and\u00a0Biomolecular\u00a0Engineering\u00a0(CBE).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This past spring, students built a pipes and pumps experiment to be used in the 2026-27 academic year\u2019s senior laboratory course, a required course for all students in CBE.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Three
(Christopher LaRosa \/ UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis is a key application for experiential learning,\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>professor\u00a0in\u00a0residence\u00a0and\u00a0associate department\u00a0head Jennifer Pascal says. \u201cStudents are given opportunities to work together as a build squad, working on project management skills that will undoubtedly go far when they start their careers.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pascal, a CBE faculty member, says the course offers students the opportunity to develop educational content for future semesters, gaining perspective outside of a lecture hall by learning how to troubleshoot equipment.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pascal\u00a0is joined\u00a0by Landon Bassett, a CBE\u00a0laboratory\u00a0coordinator\u00a0and a Ph.D. student in the\u00a0<\/span>engineering education program.<\/span><\/a> Pascal says Bassett led the day-to-day experience for students, ordering parts and organizing the build to help the class have the best experience possible.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Pascal, the students in the spring term were particularly self-led, carefully following diagrams and guides to ensure they were building the\u00a0pipes and\u00a0pumps\u00a0system to spec.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This experiment\u00a0will teach fluid flow principles to future students, some of which might include the students\u00a0that\u00a0participated\u00a0in the\u00a0Educational Laboratory course.\u00a0The\u00a0system features dual pumps\u00a0with\u00a0variable frequency drives, varying pipe diameters, and an automated data acquisition system.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
(Christopher LaRosa \/ UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bassett gives credit to the UConn Engineering <\/span>Innovation Shop<\/span><\/a>, which was involved with\u00a0sizing and assembling the pipes and pump layout.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have nothing but high praise for the engineering staff within the iShop,\u201d Bassett says. \u201cThey were instrumental in cutting the pipes to size, and properly connecting the pump hook-ups.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bassett says engineering technical services director Peter Menard also helped the students troubleshoot problems during the build, and taught them how to use various tools like pipe wrenches.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Students were versed in machine shop safety as part of the course\u2019s curriculum.\u00a0The\u00a0Innovation Shop\u00a0even trained the students, giving them the opportunity to cut their own pipes using a band saw.\u00a0This gave the students great hands-on experience with\u00a0tools they\u00a0will see in their future careers.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The experiment built in the spring 2026 semester was based on a chemical engineering unit operations laboratory pumping experiment by Andrew Maxson from the Ohio State University.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, students developed another Maxson experiment, a heat exchanger to test the impact of different flow configurations and entrance temperatures on heat exchanger effectiveness. This was successfully incorporated into the new lab curriculum, and students were able to run the experiment.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, Pascal and Bassett give credit to their student team of Jennea Campbell, Kinee Christian, Draedyn Furrow, Carl Ponce, Thomas Purcell, Aydan Reilly, Barry Ren, Praise Udom, and Christian Villanueva. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWithout their planning, know-how, and excitement to tackle this challenge, the experiment would not have been as successful as it is now,\u201d Bassett says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
(Christopher LaRosa \/ UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The course offers students the opportunity to develop educational content for future semesters, gaining perspective outside of a lecture hall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185,"featured_media":252539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866,2460,2712,2235,2458],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2445],"class_list":["post-252537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr","category-faculty","category-student-success","category-today-homepage","category-undergraduates"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-15 11:58:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/185"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252537"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252572,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252537\/revisions\/252572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/252539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252537"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=252537"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=252537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}