Jonsson School Kicks Off National Engineers Week with Explore Engineering Day

Each year in February, the National Society of Professional Engineers sponsors Engineers Week to coincide with President George Washington’s birthday. In honor of Engineers Week 2019, the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas opened its doors to the community on February 16, 2019 to host its annual Explore Engineering Day. UT Dallas students, alumni, faculty and staff as well as community and corporate sponsors hosted numerous demonstrations, workshops and discussions. Hundreds of PreK-12 students from across North Texas explored STEM careers and educational opportunities, learned through hands-on activities, and ultimately discovered the many important contributions engineers make to society. Click through for this year’s highlights.

More Explore Engineering Day coverage in the UTD News Center

Nearly 1,800 people registered for the event, which was held at ECSW, the Jonsson School’s brand-new engineering building, as well as ECSN and ECSS.

Mike Nam of AsomeIT brought a series of dancing robots and demonstrated how the devices are used to teach elementary age students to code in Python. Interested students can learn to program the robots at the UT Dallas Coding Camp during the summer.

Presenter Sadman Sakib demonstrated giant Segmented Ultralight Morphing Rotor (SUMR) wind turbines to the Morefield family who attended with their Girl Scout troop.

Hamida Khan and students constructed an optical heart rate monitor together in a workshop session. The students assembled the electronic parts, then soldered them in place. The finished biomedical devices were sent to a health clinic in Rwanda.

Ron Poynter, owner of OnPoynt Drone Solutions, showed how nimble drones are used for racing. The current pacing drone record is just over 160 MPH, and many use onboard cameras to capture the action.

Mechanical engineering students demonstrated how to construct drones, as middle and high school students assembled the drones using simple hand tools.

Girl Scouts earned patches for their participation in Explore Engineering Day and learned about STEM careers. One drone with a Thin Mints cookie box embedded in the center was used to highlight OnPoynt’s summer education at Girl Scout camps.

Tech Titans volunteer Daniel Williams ’12 (center) enjoyed returning to the UT Dallas campus as an alumnus. He lead one of several hands-on learning tables provided throughout the event.

Biomedical engineering student Bhuvana Lakkasetter Chandrashekar presented Simple Machines, including basic engineering concepts like gears and wedges, designed for PreK-5 students.

Biomedical engineering student Lan Bui presented Simple Machines, including basic engineering concepts like gears and wedges, designed for PreK-5 students.

Computer science master’s student Shiva Prasad Reddy demonstrated the next coding step to a student at Animations with Alice. Students in grades 6-12 used drag and drop programming to code 3D animations.

Lead developer of PolyCraft World Stephen Goss ’17 (center) explained how the Minecraft mod teaches complex materials science concepts within a game. The project is managed by Dr. Walter Voit ’05,’06, associate professor in the Jonsson School and principal investigator of the Advanced Polymer Research Lab.

Benjamin Allsup, vice president of the Biomedical Engineering Society, enjoyed discussing his work and his UT Dallas experience with K-12 students.

UT Dallas EPICS volunteer and sophomore mechanical engineering major Coleman Moss demonstrated a movable, electronic white board designed for individuals with mobility challenges.

Senior Arthur Sliter of Plano Academy High School demonstrated a robotic prosthetic arm with electronic fingers that he created using a 3D printer.

Preschool through elementary age students stopped by the Home Depot workshop to learn how engineers use prototypes and to construct wooden helicopters and race cars using hammers and other tools.