Caterpillar engineers connect with Greater Lafayette community as advisors for EPICS teams
Undergraduate engineering teams in Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) work with a variety of companies to improve the community, whether the community is in the same city, state or even country. The program has existed at Purdue University since September 1995.
That same year, Jason Huycke graduated from Purdue with a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering (AAE) and started working at Caterpillar Inc. He planned to spend a year or so in Greater Lafayette and move on to something more related to aerospace. If it took him back home to New Mexico, Huycke wasn’t opposed.
But Caterpillar provided Huycke endless opportunities to grow professionally and socially, so he stayed, becoming a configuration engineer, organizing data and information. Huycke was introduced to EPICS in 2018 by a colleague.
“I didn’t know anything about EPICS,” Huycke said. “Once I found out what it was, I got really interested and stuck with it.”
Less than a year later, Huycke’s Friday afternoons became dedicated to advising EPICS teams. It’s entirely voluntary, and Caterpillar supports his advising efforts. As an engineer, it keeps his skills sharp and connects him to new engineers — some of whom have been hired by Caterpillar after graduating from Purdue.
Huycke introduced Caterpillar co-worker Payal Saraiya to EPICS in 2023, and they now volunteer as advisors with two EPICS teams — the Art Smart team and the Bubble Tube team — in the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering, where they provide feedback related to design, execution and stakeholder needs.
Caterpillar is one of four local and national companies to engage with EPICS at Purdue by providing volunteer professional advisors.
Smart art and bubble tubes
“At the beginning of the semester in between products, we reach out to community partners to talk and find projects to work with,” Huycke said. “But the process is truly student run. We are strictly here to keep them on track and guide them along the engineering process related to the real-world industries.”
That was how Huycke and Saraiya encountered the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette and Wabash Center’s Youth Service at Grant’s House in Lafayette, Indiana. Both EPICS projects identified stakeholders as young children and families, with a goal to inspire a refreshed look at how creative and engaging engineering can be.
“It’s a huge part of EPICS to have the students identify the stakeholders,” Saraiya said. “For them to go through that part of the process is super important — as engineers, we often dive right into designing. They get to take a step back and designing around the customer rather than not putting the customer as a focal point.”
The Art Smart team is designing and building an interactive device to fill an empty wall with inspiring Indiana-themed and sourced art for children at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette. The art on the wall will include several pictures that rotate when a child flips the accompanying switch. The gears behind the mechanism are visible, adding to the engineering magic and active stimulation.
“Essentially, they’re designing their own version of the Rube Goldberg machine,” Saraiya said. “As a kid, those were super inspirational for me and were part of why I pursued STEM. That’s what this team wants to do: show kids that STEM has a lot of possibilities and can be a lot of fun.”
The Bubble Tube team is tasked with designing and creating a 6-foot illuminated bubble column for Grant’s House. The programs serve children and young adults with disabilities and connect participants to Greater Lafayette and to independent living through cultivating personal and technical skills. Grant’s House hosts after-school events and summer camps year-round.
“The bubble tube is going to be a stimulation tool,” Huycke said. “There will be a seat built into it, and it will change colors. It provides visual stimulation and relaxation in the corner of the room for the young adults and children serviced at Grant’s House.”
Advisors do not jump into hands-on work on EPICS projects. But Huycke finds he regularly wants to. “Working with EPICS refreshes my engineering awareness and skills because it's stuff I forget about for a time, and suddenly I remember something again.”
A north star for students
Most of the nearly two-hour Friday sessions are directly related to project logistics.
But for a few minutes every week, Huycke and Saraiya allow the conversation to expand past the projects and into real-world job experiences, job fairs and interviews. They both remember being students without a clue of what would come after graduation.
“Having someone show you that what’s ahead lets you learn from your mentor’s experiences,” Huycke said. “In turn, as a mentor I'm showing students that life after college isn’t scary. They can talk to us and get their questions answered. Learning what’s coming eases their fears a little bit.”
Saraiya recalls how crucial mentoring was for her to create a career roadmap. Leaving college was more exciting and less daunting because of her mentors.
“Mentors are your north stars. They aren’t rowing your boat for you, but they are guiding the path,” Saraiya said. “I believe that I will never have all the answers as a mentor, but I know that for students who are close to my age it’s valuable for them to see someone in a similar boat in the industry. That inspires them to do better and aim higher.”
Huycke appreciates the opportunity to be the north star for the EPICS students, showing them all they can accomplish with a Purdue engineering degree and the experiences that come with it. He frequents Armstrong Hall as a local alumnus, sharing how the path he thought would lead to NASA led to settling in Lafayette, working in a different kind of engineering and sending his children to Purdue, too.
“I've been at Caterpillar for 26 years, and I’ve seen a lot and I've done all kinds of projects. Being able to translate that into what the students are learning here in EPICS is really rewarding,” he said.