Former Lieutenant Governor Loren Leman and his wife Carolyn attended the Showcase. Here with Calvin Kruger they are making boats in the fluids lab with the American Society of Civil Engineers. Leman is serving on the College of Engineering Advisory Board, which he has done since 2010. Photo by Kaycee Davis
The College of Engineering Student Club Showcase was held on Sept. 15 in the Engineering and Industry Building. The event was hosted by the UAA College of Engineering and was open to friends of engineering students, current UAA students, staff, faculty and alumni.
This is the College of Engineering’s second time hosting the Student Clubs Showcase. The first time being at the start of Spring Semester in 2023. Dr. Jennifer McFerran Brock, Associate Dean for Academics in the College of Engineering, said that they are considering whether they will do this once a year or every semester.
The showcase is an opportunity for clubs to show up and be seen. Clubs put on demonstrations in multiple spaces inside the building. Pizza and salad from Moose’s Tooth Pizza were served in the reception area on the second floor. It was an event for all ages.
The Survey Club showed how ancient Egyptians plotted out the dimensions for the pyramids. They used thumb bobs and toe-to-foot methods of measurement, and estimated 10 inch lengths. The method was highly accurate.
In the Fluid Mechanics Lab, the Society of Civil Engineers, event-goers got to get wet while making boats. It was noisy with water turbines and the joyful chatter of participants as they folded and decorated boats, ran up the stairs on one end of the water tanks and ran down the length to the other end to see whose boat was fastest. Off to the side was a ‘graveyard’ of the boats that had already raced.
The Computer Science Club demonstrated their artificial intelligence coffee bot that will be able to take an order and make coffee by itself. They didn’t have a prototype up yet, but club members were knowledgeable and happy to share their plans.
The Society of Women Engineers showed the thermodynamic properties of salt and ice. Guests were given a zip bag and were directed to a table that had cream, sugar and vanilla. They zipped it shut, double-bagged it and were handed a can with ice and salt inside, into which they put the zipped bags and sealed the can shut. They then shook the bags. And shook. And shook. It was a lesson in exothermics, where the salt lowered the melting point of the ice to below freezing. The ice molecules released energy and the movement froze the mixture in the bag, and then guests could eat their experiment.
Student Veterans of America President Joshua Nagy hosted an Alaskan trivia game. Participants used their phones to log on to a website and play with about 15 other people in a fun, noisy game. There was plenty of laughter at the multiple choice guesses, and there was a list of who was in first through fifth place throughout the game, which made it more competitive.
The clubs worked hard on making their projects interactive and fun, and engagement with students, faculty and community members was strong. It was a great evening for people to meet students and professors and learn about College of Engineering clubs.
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