Calvin College - Prince Engineering Design Center & Vermeer Engineering Project Center (Grand Rapids, Michigan)

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The Prince Engineering Design Center and the Vermeer Engineering Projects Center consists of two working areas — one for projects, the other for design. This arrangement provides space and equipment for all Calvin student-engineers to do research, design models, and build prototypes. The building houses faculty and student research, senior projects, metal and wood shops, and many other project facilities. Completed in the fall of 1999, the building itself is instrumented for use as a teaching tool. All the major building systems — structural, heating & cooling, electrical — serve as teaching devices. Some examples: strain gages applied on the roof trusses allow for load-deflection and stress/strain analysis; instrumentation on the air handling unit and thermocouples on the wall surfaces allow for thermodynamic analyses; and electrical power monitoring devices connected to a computer-based data acquisition system allow for remote analysis of energy usage. Built in 1998. Building is 22,300 square feet.