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- Weber State University student Amanda Voigt designs a scoop for Price Airport.
After almost two years in the engineering technology department, Weber State University senior Amanda Voigt talked on Wednesday about her senior project and the innovations it will create in the airplane technology.
Voigt is in the last semester of her design graphics engineering technology degree. Her senior project involved a group of six students to design something that will lift up a small aircraft with a flat tire to help get it off the runway. She chose the name Cessna Saver as the design name.
“She had some really good ideas of concepts for the design,” said Glen West, a professor Voigt has been taking her core classes with.
One thing West said about Voigt is how she would go out into the shop to weld and grind designs she had done on the computer. His view of this was “unique” because he said a lot of the female students in the engineering program were more interested in the architectural side, where they didn’t get their hands dirty. West said Voigt had a new perspective on architecture after taking a mechanics class from her and wanted to do a mechanical design for her project.
Voigt said she took a drafting class in high school that continued her interest into college. “When I got on here, I learned 3-D plans, and it’s been fun,” she said.
Voigt said designing commercial buildings as a career would be ideal for her, or anything on the mechanical side of design. “I’m more interested in the architectural construction side of things,” Voigt said.
Voigt has done volunteer work at MESA for junior highs and high schools as part of a scholarship that pays for half of her tuition. She’s also gone to certain junior high schools in the areas to show students the opportunities they have for design graphics. “It’s been really fun going to the MESA clubs and presenting to them,” she said.
Voigt also works as a computer lab aide and in the office for Department Secretary Pat Dejong. She has given presentations and helped with recruiting students to the college.
“Anything I give her to do, she just figures out how to do it,” Dejong said. She said Voigt is a good problem-solver and leader.
According to Dejong, Voigt has been involved in a lot of different activities for engineering. She helped out at the parent-daughter engineer day last February and will help at the event this year. Voigt worked with the girls on building small designs in the small exercises they did at the parent-daughter day.
Voigt is also involved with the Society of Women Engineers, which hosts fundraisers and service work and attends conferences. She went to a Chicago conference where there was a job fair that had more than 6,000 different booths that companies represented. She was able to find information about job opportunities in different states.
With all of her extracurricular activities, Voigt has managed to take 15 credit hours this semester. At one point in her degree, she took 18 credit hours as her maximum. She is already interviewing for careers as graduation approaches.
