Lawal, Nigerian CSU student Shines in NASA Design Contest

Mr. Suraju Lawal, CSU Manufacturing Engineering (MFE) Department Sophomore student, shines with two other members, Ms. Himshikha Nath from the University of California – Davis and Ms. Mariam Shah of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, in the International Space Station (ISS) Washing Machine Design Challenge Competition and Project, for which there were six (6) NASA Summer 2021 Intern teams from various Universities across the Nation Recognition is also given to Ms. Armani Shelton, CSU Senior, Majoring in Manufacturing Engineering, who participated in the NASA Summer 2021 program and provided support to the CSU Team.

Mr. Suraju Lawal’s team (the names of the three (3) team members are indicated in the NASA Certificate inserted below and in the subject line above) focused on the Dirty Water Removal Roller System for the planned ISS Washing Machine and Mr. Lawal’s team received the Best Creativity and Innovator’s Award as is shown below in the NASA certificate.   It is hoped that this success would be shared with the ABET Team Chair as yet another evidence, an indirect measure of assessment, of the Manufacturing Engineering Department Excellent Program Outcomes and Assessments.

The NASA International Space Station (ISS) located 254 miles above the Earth, launched into orbit by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center about twenty three (23) years ago in Nov. 1998, with a current mass of 971,632 lbs. (almost 1 million lbs.), has since been circling the earth once every 90-93 minutes for the past 23 years, at a cruising speed of 17,500 miles per hour, a speed equivalent to a 135 times daily crossings of the United States from New York City, NY to San Francisco, California. 

The ISS design challenge competition offered an excellent learning experience in engineering design, teamwork, creativity and it represented a mix of engineering, scientific, intellectual and creativity effort to meet a need of World-Wide significance – support for the International Space Station (ISS) Astronaut crew hygiene needs – the washing of their clothing. Currently they wear the same clothing in the very clean environments of the ISS for about 14 or 15 days before they are changed and sometimes more frequently than that and a washing machine could reduce that cycle.  No washing machine is currently available on the ISS due to payload restrictions.  The one to be designed has many design constraints including lightweight, low energy consumption, low noise emission signatures, minimal washing fluid utilization, etc. Each of the six (6) Student Design Project Teams composed had six days

to work on their project and the final presentation was today, July 1, 2021 from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm. His team and other competing teams worked tirelessly over the six-day period and even on weekends to deliver on the design project requirements.

Mr. Suraju Lawal, a CSU Manufacturing Engineering student, who is also an Aircraft Mechanic working part-time / full time at the Dayton International Airport during the academic year repairing the Canadian Regional Jets, CRJ 700 and CRJ 900 Regional Jets with 75 and 95 passenger capacity respectively; Mr. Suraju Lawal, who took 10 weeks off this Summer to be a NASA Summer 2021 Intern at the NASA Glenn Research Center with the full permission of his organization, the PSA Airline Company, owned by the American Airlines, teamed up through a virtual Summer Internship with two other students, one from the University of California at Davis and the other from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Each of the six teams worked on an aspect of the ISS Washing Machine Design Project. Mr. Suraju Lawal and his team members worked on an innovative design concept to remove the dirty water from the ISS washing machine. They met virtually several times each of the six days, and came up with their innovative ideas and prepared their Power Point presentation and delivered it to the panel of judges. 

Their design concept evoked creativity and was insightful and was well presented, consequently, it won the first place in the NASA Glenn Research Center ISS Washing Machine Design Challenge.  This development is highly significant and is a good plug for Central State University, for the College of Engineering, Science, Techno

logy and Agriculture (CESTA) and the Manufacturing Engineering Department composed of the Manufacturing Engineering Program and the Industrial Technology program and it is hoped that some news coverage to the credit of CSU would emerge in the future in this regard when the award Certificate is presented to Mr. Lawal or when the news goes public from NASA whichever comes first, apparently the certificate of accomplishment is coming first.   It was received today, Monday, August 9, 2021 and the information is being forward to CSU with dispatch.

The NASA Innovator’s Award Certificate showing the name of Mr. Suraju Lawal and his team members, Ms. Himshikha Nath and Ms. Mariam Shah, is attached below and please notice the Grey and Brown Vertical Bars in the foreground of the Award Certificate interspersed with the blue colors of the skylight, which vertical bars represent the solar energy collectors and panels of the large football-field-size ISS orbiting platform some 254 miles above the Earth in the microgravity environment of the orbital trajectory and space that the ISS traverses continually.

Our last day for the 10-week Summer NASA Student Internship and NASA Faculty Fellowship which began on June 7, 2021 is this coming Friday, August 13, 2021 after which we will all transition, Mr. Suraju Lawal, Ms. Armani Shelton and I, to CSU to kick off the incoming Fall 2021 Semester of the new Academic Year 2021 / 2022.