Civil engineering students design for client needs
By Anne McCullochJasmine Kang’s first client presented her with an interesting and worthwhile technical challenge – retrofit a sailboat trailer for kayakers with disabilities. But soon after Kang and a team of five other second-year civil engineering students launched into the project, they realized it also involved a common, real-life professional challenge – meeting evolving client needs.
As part of UBC’s Community Service Leaning program, the team was matched with the Tetra Society, a non-profit organization that recruits skilled volunteers to create customized assistive devices for people with physical disabilities. Early in the project, the team met with the client representative, who was familiar with kayakers with disabilities and shared what he wanted in the trailer design.
“I really wanted to meet their needs,” said Kang. “Not only was it my first real client, but the project was very special because I was doing something to help a good cause.”
In her role as client contact, Kang was the link between her team and the Tetra Society, which involved coordinating the schedules and input of a large group of people. They were making progress until the client representative had an unfortunate accident and was unable to continue mentoring the team. At this time, a colleague jumped in to work with Kang and her team – a colleague with very different ideas.
The team decided the best way to handle this unexpected situation was to present the client with a detailed rationale for their choice of design.
“We worked it out very smoothly in the end,” said Kang. “We’re very confident our design will work for kayakers with disabilities.”
