Kaiden Pope
Reporter
The Engineering department at the University of Illinois held an open house on Friday March 9 and Saturday March 10.
It was held in multiple locations spanning north campus, including the Engineering Quad and the Materials Science building.
The open house showcases student projects and offers students a chance to explain their work to the public. Many students attempt to make their projects presentable to multiple age groups, including young children.
Oftentimes, explaining the projects to a child is a different explanation than the explanation for an adult.
“I did my project [last year] on super conductors, and, basically, a super conductor will float over a magnet because it can’t be penetrated by the magnetic field. A young student isn’t going to understand what a magnetic field is or how magnetism is related to electricity, so you explain it to them more simply, while an older student is going to understand the concept more easily,” U of I sophomore in chemical engineering Anna Welton-Arndt said.
Welton-Arndt has worked in the Engineering Open House both as a student presenter last year, and as part of the American Institute for Chemical Engineering’s committee for the open house this year. The committee helps connect upperclassman mentors with underclassman students who are interested in participating in EOH and helps the department organize the student’s projects.
Each department of the engineering school put together their own showcases and presentations. Some groups are more organized than others and each department does things differently to prepare for the open house. According to Welton-Arndt, the chemical engineering program is fairly student directed.
Presentations of projects done by students were shown at several locations. The projects were either run through classes or through registered student organizations. Each year, department professors put on special events such as robot wars and a tesla coil concert.
“I think [the open house] is successful in the sense that high school students come and they have a great time, although I think it has an even greater impact on younger students getting interested in STEM,” Welton-Arndt said.
Inside the engineering building, Michael Chen, a freshman computer science major, and Tyler Angus, a freshman agricultural and biological engineering student, displayed their project on Conway’s Game of Life simulation.
“Scientists before Conway explained life as the ability to live, reproduce, and die,” Angus said.
“Conway’s simulation proves that we can recreate that process with circuits, and computer programs,” Chen said.
The display was just one of the over 240 exhibits of projects around campus.
Adithya Bellary, a junior engineering student, works as the head of exhibits. He helped organize all of the locations of the presentations in the North Quad areas. He began his involvement with the Engineering Open House as a member of the freshman engineering council, a subcommittee of the engineering council, and had his own presentation. Now he works with the facilities manager and the treasurer to fund and place projects and presentations.
“The Engineering Open House is so big, and there is a huge variety of exhibits,” Bellary said. “I feel like most researchers don’t get a chance to show off their work. Most people don’t really read research papers, so the engineering open house offers these people a place to show their work to a large audience.”
Both Welton-Arndt and Bellary stressed that the ideal audience is younger students in high school and middle school and the goal is to get them interested in STEM. However, Parkland students can also benefit from the open house.
“It’s a great thing to see what the students, registered student organizations, and departments are doing. [The open house] can be a transition point for Parkland students as well,” said Bellary. “Next year we might reach out more firmly to Parkland students. I want the open house to grow as much as it can and to affect as many people as it can, and Parkland is a great place to begin.”
Parkland student Grant Clark, a sophomore, talked about his desire to go into software engineering. Software engineering is an area of computer science that deals in the creation and design of computer applications.
“I definitely think that I could get a benefit out of the Engineering Open House, to see what they can do with electronics and software. I’d like to see what I might be dealing with in the future,” Clark said.
It isn’t only students who present what they’re working on at the open house, although the majority of the committee and presenters are students. Department heads and local businesses also present. Ford Motors had a table just inside the Engineering Hall, where they were presenting some of their work.
Josh Dietrich, Kaleb Collier, and Andrew Moen, all recent grads of the University of Illinois’ engineering programs, work at Ford Motors. Dietrich builds the body of Ford’s cars, Collier provides the paint for several models, and Moen designs engines.
“It’s about connecting the right people with the right opportunities,” said Dietrich. “It’s important for us as graduates to give back.”
The three engineering graduates said that Ford recruits any and all kinds of engineers, including computer science, computer engineers, internet technology, and applied sciences students.
For more information on EOH, visit eoh.ec.illinois.edu.
