Students at Purdue Polytechnic locations in Columbus, Kokomo and Anderson recently operated as a simulated technology consulting firm for their 16-week course projects in computer and information technology. The students delivered functioning software prototypes for industrial safety and municipal infrastructure. One of the projects has already been approved for a Purdue Open Source License, registering it as an invention with unique intellectual property within the Purdue ecosystem.
Missy Casner, assistant professor of practice, structured her application integration systems course to mirror a real-world professional environment. Students tracked what would have been billable hours through weekly time commitment sheets, drafted industry partner agreements and navigated unexpected technical roadblocks over a 16-week timeline.
"In real life, you're going to come across things that you don't do in your daily work, and the expectations is that you have to figure out how to do them," Casner said.
One student team partnered with lab managers across the Purdue ecosystem to modernize how the university stores Safety Data Sheets (SDS). The team included Holden Tovey and Hayden Wehmiller from Columbus, alongside Damaurion Menifee and Sebastian Acosta from Anderson.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires facilities to maintain up-to-date safety information for all hazardous chemicals on job sites. Facilities traditionally store these records in massive, physical binders because OSHA mandates that safety data must remain accessible during emergencies, including total power and internet outages. Commercial digital databases exist, but many are expensive and rely on continuous cloud connectivity-thus undercutting their usefulness in the case of an outage.
The student team built a lightweight, offline-capable SDS application using Python, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, and a local http server on the device. The searchable database runs on an inexpensive tablet equipped with a magnetic charging case. The tablet remains operational even if the facility loses power or Wi-Fi.
There are immediate safety benefits in replacing a heavy binder with a searchable, voice-activated application: "if you're injured in the workplace, you can much more easily go to a tablet and push a few buttons to figure out what to do. The old alternative is trying to thumb through the gigantic yellow book that you've been given," Casner said.
Matt Ferrell, the project's industry partner and a Purdue Polytechnic lab manager for metrology, stated that the students exceeded his expectations by replacing a time-consuming, paper-based process.
"The students successfully developed an intuitive software solution that streamlined the workflow while also identifying and defining the support hardware requirements," Ferrell said.
Purdue administrators plan to pilot the students' offline SDS application in labs at the Polytechnic's Columbus, Anderson, Kokomo, and other statewide locations. The application has also been approved as a piece of intellectual property originating within Purdue, as it has just received a Purdue Open Source License.
"We created a searchable digital solution that can adapt to file searching needs," Menifee said. "It also gave us the opportunity to create a solution to be used in the everyday world."
A second student group partnered with the City of Columbus, Indiana, to visualize municipal data. The team consisted of Tania Hernandez Ramirez from Columbus, and Kelsey Sotello and Nathan Nichols from Kokomo.
The City of Columbus has historically tracked road closures and public permits on a text-based list provided by the city's website. This means that officials and residents haven't been able to visually map where traffic disruptions are occurring. The student team researched nearby regional municipalities and utilized ArcGIS and the Microsoft Power Platform to convert the city's static spreadsheets into an interactive, graphical map. The students taught themselves the geographic information system software and held bi-weekly meetings with city engineers to refine the tool.
Andrew, a representative for the City of Columbus, noted that the city intends to build upon the students' documentation and prototype.
"[The students] delivered a well-designed system that meets our needs and provides a solid foundation for the city to build and expand on," he said. Other feedback from Columbus was notably positive on the students' professionalism and timeliness.
Tovey, who graduated in spring 2026, credited the strict consulting format of the class with preparing him for his post-graduate career.
"This project was my first big responsibility that I felt like I was working in the job place," Tovey said. "I am grateful for the experience I got in this class, whether that be experiences I got with working with the team, or getting experience working with someone outside the team as a customer."
