Tucked away in the basement of Castleman is a 6,000 square-foot space filled to the brim with mills, lathes, and an industrial 3D printer. <\/span><\/p>\n Known to students and faculty as the \u201cCastleman Machine Shop,\u201d the space acts as a major resource for university research across all disciplines. But come every spring semester, the Machine Shop becomes a second home for UConn Engineering students trying to design, build, and finish their Senior Design projects. <\/span><\/p>\n In their fall semester, Senior Design teams will decide whether or not they need to use the Machine Shop based on their project. If so, they can send one or two group members to attend the mandatory 16-hour training class to learn the basics and safety procedures of the shop from two lifelong machinists who run the machine shop, Senior Machine Shop Engineer Peter Glaude and Mechanical Design Technician Mark Bouley. <\/span><\/p>\n The training is mostly an introduction to the shop\u2019s capabilities, but safety is one of the main concerns when teaching students, Glaude said, who has worked at the Machine Shop for eight years. <\/span><\/p>\n After a student completes their mandatory training, they are free to come into the shop and work on their projects. Most students come in with an idea in their head, and Glaude and Bouley are there to help them make it into a comprehensive design. For Glaude and Bouley, sometimes this means telling students that their projects aren\u2019t realistic with the time or money available. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThese students spend all fall semester designing and thinking about their project. Then they come to us in February and tell us all about what they want to make, and we have to teach them that they can\u2019t make what they want,\u201d Glaude said. <\/span><\/p>\n Eventually, students come back with tweaks to their plans and get started on their projects. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt is a learning experience,\u201d George Assard, Director of Engineering Technical Services, said. \u201cStudents have to figure out how to work together to make a project happen.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Both Assard and Glaude agree that students experience a \u201cpretty steep learning curve\u201d when they come to the Machine Shop, but Glaude and Bouley try and teach students as much as they can in the time students have to bring their projects to life. \u201cWe like to see them learn, we don\u2019t want to see them fail,\u201d said Assard. <\/span><\/p>\n For Bouley and Glaude, their goal of making sure every student succeeds doesn\u2019t end with the initial design process. They take students through their projects from start to finish by answering questions, teaching students more specifics on how to use machines, and sometimes even helping them make parts that they couldn\u2019t have made on their own, Glaude said. <\/span><\/p>\n Still, with all of this help, March and April are crunch-times for most students preparing for Demonstration Day.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMark and I are running around putting out fires here and there, chasing tools, it can get kind of hectic,\u201d Glaude said. Even in the hustle and bustle of Senior Design, Glaude and Bouley still have to keep up with other university research projects, so they always keep busy, Glaude said. <\/span><\/p>\n Glaude\u2019s biggest tip for Senior Design students using the Machine Shop is to get there when the shop opens at 8 a.m., that way they get extra time and attention since the shop is usually empty until about 11 a.m. every day. <\/span><\/p>\n The end result of a year’s worth of work is rewarding not only for the students but for Bouley and Glaude as well. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cStudents get to finally put their ideas into actual parts. That experience alone when they get done with something, and they\u2019re just excited that they were able to go from thinking about something to having it is really neat,\u201d Glaude said. <\/span><\/p>\n Glaude and Bouley always try to make sure that every student has something to present on Demonstration Day, even if it isn\u2019t exactly what they originally planned, Glaude said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere is usually always an answer to a problem. We will put in some extra hours with them versus making them do all the parts themselves so at least the school has something to present,\u201d Glaude said. <\/span><\/p>\n Most importantly, Assard points out that the goal of Senior Design is to learn crucial workforce skills.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe industry is looking for people who can work together as a team in a time frame and budget to finish a project,\u201d Assard said. \u201cThis is what they\u2019re going to do in the outside world.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As students begin to prepare for their Senior Design journey, the Machine Shop becomes an integral resource for them. Peter Glaude and George Assard from Engineering Technical Services explain how to best utilize this resource. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":218502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[40],"class_list":["post-26011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 05:08:44","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\/26011","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\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218504,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26011\/revisions\/218504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/218502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26011"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=26011"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=26011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_5528-1024x637.jpg\")