Nathan Makowski Wins VanPutten Engineering Prize

HOLLAND – The James D. VanPutten, Jr. Engineering Design Award was recently presented by the faculty to Nathan Makowski (’07) of Detroit. This award is given in honor of Professor Jim VanPutten, recognizing his efforts to establish the engineering department of Hope College.

Nathan Makowski, as part of his engineering design class, endeavored to create an inexpensive microphone system for tap dances. The resounding success he had with this project secured him the VanPutten Engineering Prize. Makowski came up with the idea after hearing from his dancer friends that tap dancing is generally hard to pick up with a microphone, thus increasing the cost of the microphone systems. He was able to develop a working prototype microphone system with receivers embedded in the stage sub floor which was used, to great effect, in Dance 32, one of the major campus dance performances of the semester. Makowski wrote for his project: “This system works by someone tapping on the board. The sound waves are picked up by the microphones which send the signal to the sound system. The sound system amplifies and sends out the sound again."