In the span of one week, students will have the opportunity to observe a model airplane fly, watch a student-built robot complete a variety of random mazes, participate in a pie-eating contest, and observe engineering students rap during a live show.
And those events are just a few of the highlights planned for the upcoming Engineers Week.
Students who are members of the Engineering Society of UCLA, or ESUC, have planned a week-long series of events to share frontier research, projects and current developments in the field in honor of one discipline of study: engineering.
Engineers Week, known to most as E-Week, is a decades-long tradition created to attract students from all disciplines of study and relay to them what the study of engineering can offer, said Nataly Chen, co-chair of ESUC.
“This our chance to show off what engineering at UCLA is about. A lot of non-engineering students don’t know what is out there; we want to use this event as a way to showcase what this side of campus is doing,” added Chen, a third-year mechanical engineering student.
Engineering students, who undergo the rigors of physics, chemistry, mathematics and other equally demanding science-related courses, are expected to know how to apply their knowledge for practical uses.
Such is the case with students from the UCLA chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, one of the groups planning to provide information to prospective student engineers.
The group plans to share its most recent project: a model airplane.
Hours spent for the designing and building process have brought the group closer to submitting its model airplane to a national competition.
“This is a project for undergraduate engineers so that they can get a sense of what a real-world design problem is like. It allows you to go from an obscure theoretical classroom knowledge setting to something hands on,” said Gerard Toribio, a third-year aerospace engineering student.
“Sometimes (an airplane) may seem so complex, so amazing, that you kind of wonder how people actually build it. (E-Week) gives us an opportunity to show that building such a thing is very doable,” Toribio added.
AIAA and several dozen other groups will display their projects throughout the week.
Other projects scheduled for presentation include a student-made robot designed to complete randomized mazes and a model car that runs on a magnetic strip.
But just like the nature of integration and interaction of everything students learn in a chemistry class, the elements that make for an eventful week do not stop at the presentation of groups.
Wednesday, a collective of middle school students plan to visit UCLA specifically to interact with event participants in an attempt to inspire interest within the realm of engineering.
One group, Tau Beta Pi, a national engineering honor society, plans to host a competition among the young visitors.
“We are going to hold a penny dropping contest. We’re going to give them aluminum paper and they’ll have to shape it in the form of a boat that can best support the most number of pennies,” said Frank Kuo, a student adviser of Tau Beta Pi and fourth-year electrical engineering student.
The goal of this sort of activity is to draw others to exercise their problem-solving skills, which is something aspiring engineers are expected to do.
Kuo, who has had a natural interest in the subject which grew as he developed better skills sets within related studies such as mathematics, said he is hoping events like this will spark interest in younger generations.
“This sort of thing increases awareness (of what engineering offers) among younger students, which is important. (Tau Beta Pi) actually also visited a high school last quarter to discuss the importance of engineering,” Kuo said.
Aside from the educational insight the week’s program will offer, another goal is to “just have fun,” said Gerald Lee, co-chair of the E-Week events.
“Most people think South Campus students are only talented in the sciences, but E-Week’s Idol show Wednesday night will help show everyone that some of the same students are actually really talented,” Lee added.
An example Lee cited was one E-Week Idol participant who plans to rap.
Music and talent are not exclusive to the Idol show.
Today and Friday at Bruin Plaza, other participants will have the opportunity to sing and dance during a multi-artist and group concert.