Riding Into the Summer with Memories of Friends, Fun, and Challenge

It’s not every day students get to push their professor around on a rollercoaster-like railway. But for seniors in Design for Fabrication (ME 93), a class taught by Part-Time Lecturer and Director of the Nolop Makerspace Brandon Stafford, this quickly became a reality as they completed their final project: designing and building a pedal-powered railway. 

“Most of the students in the class are seniors,” Stafford explained. “I want my students’ last memory of Tufts to be working together on something bigger than themselves. This course leaves graduating students with an important lesson that outside of college, what matters most is working together and having fun through challenges.” 

The framework of Stafford’s class is simple: students set goals and achieve them through various design projects. The course allows students to work in teams and learn from each other, break drill bits, and face engineering failure. The experience facilitates both teamwork and a lesson that, in the real world, nothing really goes according to plan.  

This year, the 35-student class had under a week to design and build their railway on the patio of the Tsungming Tu Complex, with small teams each responsible for one section, including a turntable that changes the direction of the passenger cart, the passenger cart itself, and a track that climbs up a small hill. The final product—which the students built in a matter of a few days—spanned across the entirety of the patio.  

“Last year, the final project for the course was building cranes that could lift people up,” Stafford said. “Another year it was building and racing bicycles." 

Students spent a majority of their class time in the Nolop FAST Facility makerspace, which is dedicated to hands-on learning that allows students to go outside their comfort zone and transform ideas into reality. The lab, open to all Tufts students, has every tool imaginable along with help from student assistants. 

Learn more about the Nolop FAST facility makerspace and the Design for Fabrication course.