Taran Kamireddy's VIP team works to create an effective and objective test for post-stroke mobility through fingers and wrists.

Experiential learning doesn’t have to come from a competitive internship. In fact, through Purdue University, gaining relevant skills and connections can be a part of a student’s semesterly curriculum thanks to Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) and Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP). 

EPICS became an official Purdue offering in 1995 with a focus on nonprofit and not-for-profit community organizations to develop design solutions addressing human, community, and environmental needs. VIP, officially founded in 2001 and a formal program in the College of Engineering since 2019, offers students industry and research-related opportunities to build their connections and marketable skills through authentic research and design projects supporting the research areas of Purdue faculty members and national, international, and industry-sponsored design challenges.

Regardless of the organization, EPICS and VIP students work closely with project partners and sponsors to solve real-world problems in physical and digital platforms.

Purdue University in Indianapolis gives students a slew of opportunities to interact with local or large-scale organizations through a variety of means. Engineering students spend their first year within an EPICS or VIP project aligned with their major and interests and can continue to work on them for months, even years, at a time. As a bonus, for these students, their projects are another class. For just one or two credits each semester, participating students become equipped to present, communicate and even build, all skills that will bolster resumes and help them gain access to the highly competitive internships in Indianapolis’ many successful companies. 

Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS): for community-based projects to grow interpersonal, professional and design skills

For students who are looking to grow interpersonal skills and work on community-based design solutions, EPICS projects are a major draw.

“In EPICS, you’re learning how to be an engineer through this class and through the community,” said Nadia Rixner, a Purdue electrical engineering student in Indianapolis working with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) museum. “You’re learning how to present your thoughts as an engineer, not just giving them a report.”

Rixner’s EPICS team has split into smaller teams to present new exhibits for the transforming IMS museum, which has been in commission since 1945. Indiana native and motorsports enthusiast Rixner is well-versed in the museum, calling it a “mandatory trip” for her family growing up, and knew exactly what her subgroup could do that would be unique and insightful. The team began designing an exhibit to showcase the safety barriers and materials used in the annual Indianapolis 500. 

“We'll have little cars and the kids and whoever else is at the museum are basically going to get to run them into four different materials,” Rixner said. “They’ll see understandable explanations of what energy absorption does to the car and to the barriers and why the barriers are made out of certain materials to protect the car and the driver.

“This project shines light on all the science and safety that goes into keeping drivers safe.”

The EPICS project has taken the team to the raceway bricks and the Speedway museum. As the project archivist and principal communicator with IMS, Rixner gets to document every idea, discussion and insight the team and the IMS contact have. 

“There’s only so much you can do without seeing it,” Rixner said about watching cars on the IMS tracks. “Being on an urban campus with EPICS gives us a lot of resources and opportunities.”

Hank Smith, a first-year student majoring in computer engineering in Indianapolis, saw the great assets of Purdue’s urban expansion and prioritized being in the capital city for the opportunities.  

EPICS projects give students an opportunity for hands-on experience.

“I knew Purdue was my dream school," Smith said, "and I knew that Indianapolis is a huge hub for companies.” 

Smith serves as design lead for an EPICS project revamping physical and digital assets for Cathedral High School. He is currently designing new setups for the chemistry lab and parking lots with the feedback of the school’s vice principal, who is actively involved in the project. 

EPICS projects also address urgent community needs. Indianapolis is currently a food desert, meaning healthy and affordable food can be difficult to come by based on location and socioeconomic status. Companies such as Gleaners work to open food access and work tirelessly to optimize the process, which Vanisha Rajlakshmi works on as the project archivist. 

“I get to talk to everybody and figure out all their perspectives,” said Rajlakshmi, a Purdue mechanical engineering major in Indianapolis. “We’re interviewing the drivers or writing down the project proposals. All the design things I write down and try to figure out. Having empathy for people and learning how, in engineering, to take account of other people’s feelings and their thoughts on how to approach different problems is really important.

“This project really does have an immediate impact on people. It’s something that’s super important for the community.”

EPICS in Indianapolis opens up new opportunities for students, like Chelsie Rayl, a Purdue computer engineering student in Indianapolis who is working for Family Ark in Jeffersonville, Indiana. She has found the experience at Family Ark, which provides transitional housing to families, connects children to foster parents and community services to nourish healthy relationships, to be a great learning experience in new skills and communicating effectively with clients. 

“They want the kids to have a really good experience growing up there in Jeffersonville,” Rayl said. “My subgroup of five is building a wooden Tic Tac Toe board right now. I’m learning a lot more about actually building things. I’ve never cut wood or put pieces together.

“Our project is really focused on creativity and creating a better environment for the kids to grow up in.”

Rayl’s team experienced a large-scale pivot in how their project was executed. Had Rayl not nudged their contact at Family Ark, the team may not have known to change their course of action. While the change disappointed some of the team, they were able to move effectively into the new approach Family Ark hoped to take regarding their play spaces. 

“I found that I can’t be scared to reach out (to our contact) and talk about all of our ideas,” Rayl said. “I’ve worked with people inside (my own) team, and it’s a good experience to have to communicate these ideas with someone who doesn’t necessarily know what’s going on.”

The experiences have shaped her real-world experience and given her a head start on functioning in a professional environment. It’s also given Rayl some truly hands-on experiences in entirely new fields that can supplement her ECE degree nicely.

“EPICS is different than all of my other classes,” Rayl concluded. “I’ve learned how to do math. I've learned how to code. I know how to write, but this is like my first difference with real-world situations, and it's definitely a good experience to know how that’s going to work.” 

Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP): for industry-sponsored projects to cultivate research skills with faculty mentors

VIP projects focus on building industry skills and professionalism. Elliott Korentager, a first-year Purdue biomedical engineering student in Indianapolis, is working on a project which connects with his passion to develop tissues that can replace cancerous or damaged muscles in the human body. His team works to improve the connections of brain diodes and the stability of containers used in tissue growth experiments using animal research methods alongside neurologist Makram Obeid. Korentager’s first semester with the VIP project has been primarily computer-aided design (CAD) and digital preparations for hands-on work to come later.  

“I’ve done a lot of the CAD work for it, but I’ve also tried to make sure that I teach other people how to do it,” Korentager said. “It’s a great way to reaffirm that this is what you want to do or realize it isn’t your goal.” 

Chelsie Rayl's EPICS project with Family Ark in Jeffersonville, Indiana, included creating a wooden Tic Tac Toe board by hand. The completed board is for a refurbished playground at Family Ark. 

But the organizations they work with aren’t the only ones they glean knowledge from: First-year engineering students are often on teams with juniors and seniors of their majors. Korentager expressed relief in learning from a junior BME student. 

“The idea with VIP is that you have someone who’s an upperclassman or a couple upperclassmen depending on your group size,” he said. “Having that (in my) freshman year is like nothing I’ve heard of anywhere else in the country. Having someone who’s sort of on the similar career path as you are but a little further along is nice as well.”

One VIP project includes an Indianapolis staple since 1915: Allison Transmission. First-year student and team leader Joey Braun, also based in Indianapolis, has already learned something new in his industry. His team is using CAD to prototype data collection methods and learning by analyzing comprehensive archives of the company’s transmission machines.

“They don’t have a lot of built-in mechanisms recording the quantity of parts that comes through and out,” Braun said. “We’re establishing a bunch of ways that we can do that, whether it’s vibrations or sound that we can click every single time that a part goes through.”

Their involvement with Allison Transmission has included walking the plant floor and examining the assembly lines that models would gather data from. The team also has over 20 years of provided data to aid in directing the project.

“We can’t tell what any of it means yet,” Braun said. “We’re figuring that out right now.”

The VIP team’s innovative ideas will save Allison Transmission time and money, which Braun and his team are excited to do. He said he’s “proud to be part of that group."

Can a student do both?

Purdue students in Indianapolis are welcome to explore different EPICS and VIP projects, but it is rare that a student engages in both simultaneously from the beginning of their time at Purdue. Taran Kamireddy is an exception, joining one course of each so he could choose one but found himself invested in both projects and chose to remain.

In his VIP project, Kamireddy’s team is working under Ken Yoshida, an Indianapolis-based Biomedical Engineering faculty member specializing in neural and bioelectrical medicine and research, to improve objective evaluations of stroke patients. Stroke patients are often evaluated by bending their arms, wrists and fingers to be ranked by their medical professional. The team works to make a more automated and standardized test to help doctors accurately rank progress with a motion sensor system that attaches to hands, elbows and, in the future, all the way up to a patient’s shoulder. The large team is split into smaller teams to focus on sensors in each part of the arm.

“Right now, the other teams are working with position sensors and mounts, and we’re doing the joint angle sensor because we're trying to compare which one will work best,” Kamireddy said. “We’re trying out different ideas.”

Kamireddy pitched the idea for an EPICS project to his mentor, and it resonated. Kamireddy utilized a personal connection to an American Sign Language professor to propose a project aiding the Indiana School for the Deaf. The team in which he serves as design lead is working to create an avatar that can be simulcast on screens to help young children connect the English words they learn to the ASL signs they know. This would allow students to learn English more intuitively and aid them in putting together the signs they know with the sentences they use to speak.

“I’ve never done anything that’s actually affecting other people’s lives personally,” Kamireddy said. “It’s a different kind of motivation (than getting a grade).”

Kamireddy has seen great benefits from participating in both programs.