Engineering Week to hold activites and presentations
Engineering Week is this week on campus and will provide students with the opportunity to compete and demonstrate a variety of engineering skills.
John Jacklin, vice president for Engineering Week, said Wednesday a free lunch will be offered in the Engineering Breezeway.
One of the main events during Engineering Week is the competition held by the Center for Self-Organizing Intelligent Systems (CSOIS) headed by Kevin Moore, director for the center.
The competition will be held Thursday in the Engineering Blue Room located on the north side of the Engineering Laboratory Building from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. College students as well as local elementary students will demo robots.
Another big attraction this week is the engineering competition Thursday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the Taggart Student Center Sunburst lounge.
Students can compete in a variety of activities such as the Beta Bowl which is a game similar to Jeopardy. Teams will answer questions from categories such as math, science, art, music and humanities.
Students will also compete in the Pine Wood Derby testing the speed of cars built by students and the Model Bridge Building Contest where bridges are built out of balsa wood and then tested to withstand pressure.
Another popular competition is the SWE Mystery Design sponsored by the Society for Women Engineers. In this competition, contestants are given sacks with many common materials such as rubber bands and a Styrofoam ball. Contestants are then supposed to design a self-launching mechanism. The projectile that travels the farthest wins.
Jacklin said students’ prizes will total $4,000.
Friday, he said, professor J.D. Thorpe will be presenting a lecture at 12:30 p.m. entitled “Power Dating: A Case for Effective, Affordable Dates.” It will be in the Engineering Building, Room 105 with free pizza. Awards will be given out that night as well.
The engineering department encourages everyone to come participate in their very own “mini-olympics,” according to a release from the dean’s office.