Winter-weary Midwesterners may feel like climbing the walls metaphorically at times, but Tri-State University engineering students created a robot that does it physically.

An opportunity to watch that feat will be part of TSU’s annual Engineering Expo Friday, April 25, beginning at 1 p.m. with activities in Best and Fawick halls. The event allows juniors and seniors in the Allen School of Engineering & Technology to show off a year’s worth of study and dedication in their design projects.

Kicking off events will be a presentation by guest speaker Kevin Passino, professor of electrical engineering at Ohio State University, from 1-1:30 p.m. in Best Hall 229. Passino will present “Bio-inspired Autonomous Systems Design,” a study of the swarming of honey bees and its application to robots.

From 1:30-3:30 p.m., the public can browse the seniors’ engineering projects on display on the first and second floors of Fawick Hall. An insertion and extraction tool for use in orthopedic surgery, a performing arts building for TSU, a small taxi aircraft able to land on a 3,000-foot runway, and the 2008 Society of Automotive Engineers 2008 design competition off-road vehicle are just some samples of the seniors’ work. Local industries, many of which have offered internships or employment for TSU engineering students, will also set up displays on their products.

At 3:30 p.m., the student design team of Jonathan Baldwin, Karl Gast, and Lyle Oesterling from the Wade Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering will demonstrate their wall-climbing robot in Room 112-117, Fawick Hall. The public is invited to attend the speech and enjoy the projects and displays. There is no charge to attend.