By Darien Carroll
Most students spend their time studying in the library reading their books. However, Morgan Quigley can be found at the local parks, testing the airplanes he created under the direction of his friend and professor Randy Beard.
Grants provided by the President”s Leadership Council and the Office of Creative Research and Activities have made Quigley”s unique research possible.
“This really elevates a student”s career and gives them more opportunities than they would have otherwise had,” said Matt Maddox, ORCA administrator. “It gives them a whole other level of experience.”
ORCA recently extended its grant application deadline to Nov. 30, providing even more students with opportunities similar to Quigley”s.
Quigley, who qualified for these grants, developed a relationship with his teacher after taking one of Beard”s robot classes. Beard then hired him as a research assistant.
“It was almost like Morgan came to us and said ”Hey, I can contribute on that particular project,”” Beard said.
Beard said learning is more than studying textbooks and he is excited to provide opportunities like this for his students. It is the experience of stepping into the unknown and trying to solve problems that have no solutions – yet.
“The classroom setting is very artificial,” Beard said. “In engineering you have real problems you are trying to solve. They are not in textbooks. There is not a solution manual you can go to.”
Now, when Quigley is not in class, he spends the majority of his time in a lab working on plastic foam airplanes with GPS tracking systems. NASA and the military are finding uses for these planes because cameras attached to them can track small targets.
Quigley has found personal use for working on this project as well.
“It has been huge because it has helped me to figure out what I like to do,” Quigley said. “Computer science, electrical engineering, they”re really big fields. There are all sorts of things you can do in them, and so I”ve narrowed down that I like little robotic stuff that flies around.”
Quigley”s professors are not only satisfied with his work in the lab, but are impressed that he has such a broad range of interests. He is majoring in both computer science and music, specifically electronic composing.
“You give him something to do and he comes back, not with questions or ”I don”t understand it,” but he”s tried something,” Beard said. “He usually has some sort of solution. It may not be just right yet, what you”ve envisioned, but he always has something that he”s tried.”
Although Quigley works with a large group of students, he is the only undergraduate student hired to work on these airplanes.
“My favorite part is just being a part of a big team where we all can go out and make stuff work and work in groups,” Quigley said. “All of us have different parts that we are responsible for. Just to get this thing off the ground, it takes about six or seven people”s systems working together. If anyone”s system fails, the plane wrecks.”
Working with other students has helped Quigley, but Beard has taught him the most about developing working relationships and approaching problems, Quigley said.
“He pretty much sets us free,” Quigley said. “He tells us what he wants to happen, and then how we actually go about implementing it is whatever we want to do. He is not trying to be dogmatic about saying this is how it has to be done, so he lets us learn on our own.”
Both Quigley and Beard encourage other students to take advantage of creating student-teacher relationships. Beard said students who graduated with two to three years of research experience have been hired right out of college.
“Be aggressive and show interest,” Beard said to students looking for opportunities to work with faculty. “You want to be bold and have a broad set of interests.”
