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     Financial Support for the Leonardo da Vinci Design Endowment
 

This flexible fund, created to promote excellence in undergraduate design education, furnishes valuable resources for enriching the programs, initiatives and activities associated with the department of Mechanical Engineering's design sequence. At Design Day you will have clearly observed how this educational experience is transforming students into innovative thinkers, professional engineers and the societal leaders of tomorrow.

Two segments of the design program that will benefit immensely from this endowment are: Design Scholarships: The Leonardo da Vinci Undergraduate Design Scholarship has recently been established to honor and encourage the adoption of the spirit and the innovative thinking of this universal genius. Recipients are the winners of the senior level ME 471 class competition where teams must design, build, test, and validate an engineering system. Philanthropic Community Projects: Each semester ME 481 students complete an emotionally charged humanitarian project for the community. They typically create a unique engineering device tailored to the specific needs of a child without charge to the recipient. Children suffering from cerebral palsy, meningococcemia, static encephalopathy, amputations and many other medical ailments have been given a new lease on life.

The core design courses, that represent the very heart of the engineering curriculum, are spectacular - ME471 students have won the annual ASME Mid-Western Regional Design Competition nine out the past ten times against teams from the University of Toronto, the University of Michigan, Carnegie Mellon University, The Ohio State University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of West Virginia, etc., and the ME481 capstone class was ranked 6th in the USA in 2003 by US News and World Report. In addition to ensuring our students receive a spectacular educational experience, we wish to further enhance the design sequence of classes so that they really excel at the national level.

Gifts of all sizes are sought - small, medium and substantial. Can you please help? Don't be shy; invest in the education of our students. The very future of our nation! I'm convinced that the consequences will undoubtedly be immeasurable! You may recall the following sentence penned by Leonardo da Vinci, "I've been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do". What will you do?

For further information, please contact:

Professor Brian S. Thompson,
Departmental Design Coordinator
517 - 355 - 2179
Thompson@egr.msu.edu