The joke might be old and tired but it’s true: For an engineering building, Technological Institute sure isn’t designed well.

But thanks to several students in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, hungry diners who navigate their way to Tech Express, the building’s cafe, will find a redesigned, more user-friendly space.

Two groups of freshmen who enrolled in Engineering Design and Communication classes in Spring Quarter developed layouts for an area formerly called “inefficient.” The students from one group were surprised to find many of their changes implemented when they returned to campus this fall — especially considering their grade.

“The whole group was like, ‘What happened to our grade?'” said Isaac Chung, a McCormick sophomore.

His group got a B- on its presentation.

Chung’s group suggested making some food options self-service and forcing customers into a U-shaped line rather than a long one running out the side door.

Now students can grab food out of refrigerators instead of waiting in line with students ordering hot meals.

The cafe also took both groups’ suggestions to add a register and replace last year’s booths with tables.

“(The booths) were inefficient,” said Edward Paramadilok, a McCormick sophomore. “People would take up an entire booth to study by themselves.”

All engineering students are required to take two quarters of EDC. In the second quarter, students are split into groups of four and each group works with a client to solve a real engineering problem. For example, in Spring Quarter’s classes, some worked on developing a prosthetic hand for a female client. Other students in the class designed rooms for the future Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Building. Construction for that is slated to begin in late fall.

The two groups that redesigned Tech Express presented their designs to classmates and university officials at the end of the quarterlong project, said Michael Besancon, McCormick’s associate dean of administration, finance and planning.

“When you look at the types of projects that the EDC course takes on,” he said, “every year it’s a full range of real, live, customer-based problems — whether they’re here at the university or in an industry. This (Tech Express design) is fairly typical of the really high quality work that comes out of that course.”

Chung said he wanted to work on the Tech Express project because he thought it would be the “easiest one.” But as engineers often discover, last year’s students found the project anything but.

“It was very frustrating for them in the middle because they ran into many obstacles that they weren’t expecting,” said adjunct instructor John Lake, who taught the class with Penny Hirsch.

Building codes, fire hazard requirements, budget constraints and university bureaucracy all challenged the students.

“(The constraints) were very realistic,” Lake said. “Often you’ll get a lot of reasons for why (the client) can’t do half the things you propose.”

But the experience taught the students to adjust their projects to meet clients’ sometimes-rigorous demands.

“Until EDC there was nothing that was actually applied,” said Jonathan Flowers, a McCormick sophomore. “It works a lot on the communication part of engineering.”

The benefit of tackling a university project, said McCormick sophomore Ed Huang, was seeing his work implemented.

“It was just awesome to see how they put our idea to life,” Huang said. “The fact that they actually respect your idea and they see some value in it gives you some appreciation for your own work.”