It started with a marble setting off a mouse trap. Step by step, the contraption made out of a chair, cardboard, and a number of household objects unwound until it reached its goal – a paper cutout of a hand high-fiving one of the team members.
Merrick Campbell remembers himself and his five friends on team Avengineering jumping up and down, screaming with joy when their Rube Goldberg-style machine finally worked at a competition hosted by Tau Beta Pi, a national engineering honor society at UCLA.
The students went on to form the Avengineering club in the spring, where any students who enjoy building and hands-on learning can share knowledge and collaborate to create projects, said Campbell, a second-year mechanical engineering student and logistics officer for the club.
“We were all happy (at the competition) because we made something that worked and we were really proud of it,” said Colin Broderick, a second-year chemical engineering student and member of team Avengineering. “That’s the kind of feeling that I want to capture with (the Avengineering club) … I just want to capture that spirit.”
The founders of the club became friends during their freshman year at UCLA and started to participate in competitions for the engineering honor society, Campbell said.
The idea to form the club came after they participated in the Rube Goldberg competition, Broderick said. The students wanted to build projects more often and decided to form the Avengineering club, a space for students to build and create, he added.
“One of the things we’ve noticed as freshmen in the engineering program is we have a lot of lectures that talk about theory but we don’t have experience with it at all,” Campbell said. “We lack a lot of hands-on opportunities.”
Although the club members have yet to figure out a concrete plan of the projects they will take on, they plan on working with 3D printers, programmable circuit boards, miniature blimps and catapults, Campbell said.
Broderick said they are planning to let new members pitch ideas and choose which projects they are interested in.
For example, any student with knowledge on a specific topic can teach other students and collaborate to create projects. Campbell is planning a tutorial on 3D printing, which he said the club could use for anything it wants. He has already used a 3D printer to build another 3D printer. He also plans to build an iPhone case and a sculpture of himself.
The club members also hope to combine North and South campus ideas, promoting art along with the sciences to build more creative projects, Campbell said.
Lauren Amorese, a second-year Design | Media Arts student, said that students within her major are required to take a class on 3D design and therefore might be interested in joining the club so they can combine their art ideas with the sciences.
The name “Avengineering” came from a play on the movie “The Avengers,” Broderick said.
“(‘The Avengers’) was a fun topic for us to talk about, and it just came up when we were discussing our name that we can combine it with engineering,” Broderick said.
The club members also hope to host their own events in the future and partner with The Exploratory, a center for creative learning in Culver City, Broderick said.
Edward Barbers, a third-year aerospace engineering student,said he was concerned about the club keeping its members active and engaged.
“Most of (the clubs I’m in) work to compete in some sort of national competitions. So we have that kind of goal pushing us forward,” Barbers said.
The club members hope to keep students engaged by offering a different type of project each week, Broderick said.
Campbell says he hopes students will “tinker” with the projects so that they can constantly improve.
“This first year will be a lot about finding our niche, but once we get a solid footing we can grow to do fun things,” Campbell said. “I think there are a lot of tinkerers on campus who like to build things. We just need to find them.”