Student Interns Plow Ahead with Engineering Project

Taking her place in the tractor seat, Lexus Gruszka, 7, puts her feet on the pedals and gets ready to make her move.

Lexus isn’t pulling hay, she’s pulling a very heavy sled.

The sled Lexus attempts to pull, brings together Naperville’s history as an agricultural community and modern-day engineering, as a team of six student interns watched the culmination of weeks of work put to practical use.

The students are part of the Students in Technology and Engineering at Packer (STEP) internship program at Packer Engineering. For several weeks the students planned how to make the sled, determining even the most minor detail from where to drill holes to learning skills such as how to cut metal.

A total of 14 students are participating in the six-week internship program this summer and six of them worked on the pedal pull sled project.

“The real goal is to give them a real taste of engineering,” said Nick DiGiovanni, STEP intern coordinator.

Often students think they want to be engineers, but some go through school and even college and never get hands-on experience, DiGiovanni said.

“We like to give them the taste early while they are in high school,” he said.

According to the company, Packer Engineering specializes in engineering and scientifically grounded consulting services. Kenneth F. Packer founded the Naperville-based company in 1962.

Packer is a huge proponent of education, so the STEP Program is an essential component to engaging and encouraging future engineers, said DiGiovanni and Tim Kulak, another STEP inter coordinator.

Next weekend the pedal pull sled will make its debut at the DuPage County Fair where, filled with weights, children will take turns furiously pedaling to try and move the sled as far as possible. Whoever can move it the farthest will be the winner.

The Wheatland Plowing Match Associationwas the recipient of the sled and will use it every year at the DuPage County Fair. The association dates back to 1877.

Ruth Hageman of Big Rock, formerly of Naperville, said that plowing matches aren’t held anymore but the organization remains as a way to promote the agricultural heritage of the community. It raises funds for scholarships for students who plan to pursue agricultural careers.

Last week the students took the sled out for a run with Lexus of Oswego giving it a test run. Then it was presented to the Plowing Match Association.

Building the sled took about three or four weeks from design to completion, said Grace Deetjen, 16, of Naperville, and a senior at .

Deetjen and her five teammates worked with technologist, Tom Kuhn and engineer Nicole Schimpf on the project.

The students took huge sheets of metal that they had to cut to size, smooth, drill and sand and turned them into the sled, the team members said. Originally, the team thought it could use gears to make the sled work but the members realized they could use sprockets. That is when their math skills came into play.

Even drilling holes required precise calculations, Deetjen said.

Along with using their math skills, they gained experience learning to use different machinery.

During their six-week internship the students gain practical experience, interact with professional engineers and also learn about teamwork, Kulak said.

“We teach them how to work as a team,” he said. “Everybody learns from everybody else.”