Jonsson School Invites Community to Explore Engineering

The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science opened its doors to the community to explore how engineering and computer science creates innovation and invites discovery. Explore Engineering Day welcomed families and students from across North Texas for hands-on activities; educational demonstrations; and fascinating tech talks by leading faculty and local engineering companies. Middle school and high school students also had the opportunity to explore college and career paths. With over 3,500 visitors, Explore Engineering Day kicked off UT Dallas’ Engineers Week – a weeklong celebration of engineering and computer science.

These students used a model skeleton to illustrate how medical implants work. From L to R: Laura Rivera, a PhD student in biomedical engineering; Adam Yarneau, a sophomore computer science major; and Lucero Ramriez, also a PhD student in biomedical engineering.

Pavan Sagare Prakash, an electrical engineering graduate student, uses balloons to demonstrate how air pressure works to girl scouts from trop 7921.

Jacquelyn Zbranak, a senior electrical engineering student, and Rama Narayan, a computer science graduate student, work with a group of fourth grade girls on programming basics using Beebots, which are kid-friendly programmable robots.

Home Depot offered families the opportunity to sand, hammer and design their own model Humvees with ready-to-assemble kits.

Students from the Society of Automotive Engineers show off the Formula One race car chassis they built for their UTDesign project.

Kids from the community played with the giant fidget spinner that was built by UT Dallas students. The Dallas Morning News reported that the fidget spinner may be one of the biggest in the world.

Andrea Dearing, who works as a environmental health and safety engineer at Fujitsu gave a tech talk titled, “Girls Can be Engineers too – Not Just Cheerleaders.”

Lindsey Leith, a junior electrical engineering major, shared information about electrical circuits to even the youngest of visitors.

Tony Dunkel (left) was among the first graduates of UT Dallas’ first EMBA program; his wife, Linda, earned her master’s in international business in 1976. Their grandson Zachary is a junior in high school who is hoping to study computer science at UT Dallas.

This group of students battled with their Beyblade toys.

Rittika Shamsuddin, a PhD student in computer science, shows of the motion capture lab with Kyle Reeder, an undergraduate arts and technology major.