College of Engineering Day

Interested in becoming an ENGINEER?

Engineering Day at the U
Date:  October 25, 2008
Time:  9:00 - 12:30
Location:  Warnock Engineering Building

College of Engineering Day is a half-day event open to high school students (9-12), undecided majors and transfer students interested in engineering.  This event is FREE and is designed to introduce students to a variety of engineering disciplines.  Participants will have the opportunity to tour our engineering facilities, find out what research is happening in the College and attend exciting engineering presentations/demonstrations. Participants are required to RSVP via the webform listed below and arrive between 8:30-9:00 to register for your sessions.  Lab tour space is limited thus presentations and demonstrations will be going on concurrently. 

Parents, counselors and teachers are encouraged to attend as well. 

Click HERE to register.

Schedule of Events
8:30 - 9:00: Check-In/Breakfast/Register for Sessions
9:00 - 9:30: Meet faculty, researchers and advisors
9:35 - 9:50: Welcome
10:00 - 10:30: Session #1/Presentations and Tours
10:45 - 11:15: Session #2/Presentation and Tours
11:30 - 12:00: Session #3/Presentation and Tours
12:05 - 1:00: Lunch/Meet the Departments, Student Clubs

Questions? Please contact Deidre Schoenfeld: dschoenfeld@coe.utah.edu

PRESENTATIONS
Difference Between Scientist, Inventor and Engineer
A discussion the difference between scientist, inventor and engineer. It was pointed out that at times and engineer might wear any of the three hats.

Have you Hugged Your Computer Lately (Computer Science)
Presented by: Dr. Ganeesh Gopalakrishnan - Professor
Computers are everywhere: from massive installations that predict weather and ensure that airplanes can fly; from medium installations that make your cars nimble and safe; all the way to humble computers that make Tickle-me-Elmos do their antics. How do computers carry out this range of tasks? Can they displace humans? Can they boldly go where no man (or computer) has gone before? Let me entertain you for half an hour and help you reach your own conclusions on these topics.

Earth on a Low-Carb Diet (Mechanical Engineering)
Presented by: Dr. Kent Udell – Department Chair and Professor
Peak oil. Energy security. Sustainability. These are the issues of our time. Do you want to change the world? Start here. Begin by imagining a world where energy needs and luxuries are provided without fossil fuels. Where technologies are created that improve our lives and leave our planet healthy for future generations. Where our air is clean and our water is pure. This is engineering in its finest form. Believe that it can happen. As will be discussed in this forum, the possibilities for engineering solutions are unlimited.

So Many Types of Engineers – How to decide which branch of engineering is right for U.
Presented by: U of U Engineering Students
Get a brief description/demonstration of the types of engineering offered at the U. Ask our student panel what they wished they would have known their first year at the U. Discover the interesting things you can do outside of class to enhance your engineering education. Talk to students who changed their major multiple times. Meet with advisors from the different disciplines.

Material Science SAC Presentation (Material Science Engineering)
Presented by: U of U Material Science Engineering Students
This session will provide hands on experiments and demonstrations that display the fundamental concepts of Material Science Engineering. Demonstrations will include: Atomic Trampoline, Memory Metal, Space Shuttle tile, Composites, Artificial Snow, Color Changing LED’s and More Liquid Nitrogen fun.

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TBA
BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING TBA
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING TBA

TOURS
Occupational and Bio-Mechanics and Rehabilitation Ergonomics Lab
Mechanical Engineering
This tour will illustrate how the the body acts like a mechanical system. We will demonstrate how the stresses in the legs resulting from different walking surfaces can be determined. Several different assistive technology and rehabilitation devices, such as new wheelchair designs and other devices, will be demonstrated. All of the assistive technology devices were developed by students, many by undergraduate students, and some have been patented. A method to measure muscle activity without cutting the skin will also be demonstrated.

Microfab and Surface Analysis Lab
Mechanical, Electrical and Material Science Engineering
This laboratory is home of the micromachining, microfabrication, and nano-scale semiconductor materials and device research at the University of Utah. Offering an extensive array of equipment and resources, the laboratories provide students the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of microsystem design and characterization, microsensors and actuators, and microelectric devices. The labs support and enable many industry/university collaborations by innovating and transferring technologies into the private sector.

Traffic Lab: Did you know traffic is controlled like airplanes.
Civil Engineering
The Utah Traffic Lab is a traffic control center where operators watch, control, and divert traffic. This tour will show you how the University is building detailed models of traffic to enable better management of traffic.

Water, Water Everywhere: Water Resources Laboratory Tour/Demonstration.
Civil Engineering
Have you ever wondered how clean water gets to your house? Or where the water goes after you flush your toilet? Have you ever wanted to help prevent the devastating floods that have impacted our country recently, plan to provide water for the next drought, design and build the next pipeline to supply water for new urban growth, or design sustainable water infrastructure to support future generations? At the Water Resources Laboratory demonstration we will discuss these topics and describe how water resources engineers train to address these and other challenging water problems facing Utah and the world.

Scientific Computing Institute
Computer Science
The overarching research goal of the SCI Institute is to create new scientific computing techniques, tools, and systems with which to solve problems affecting various aspects of human life. The focus of the Institute has been largely in medicine, but we have also solved computational and imaging problems in other application areas such as geophysics, chemical engineering, molecular dynamics, aerospace fluid mechanics, combustion, and atmospheric dispersion.

Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) Lab
Material Science Engineering
There's Close and then Their's Close.Come see your world up close and personal, through the eyes of the scanning electron microscope. You will see everything from common insects and plants to current research being preformed on a scale so small it can not be detected with the naked eye.

Biodesign: Materials for Implantation
Biomedical Engineering
Engineering problems often center around selection of appropriate materials.

This is especially true in biomedical engineering where selection of an appropriate material may influence its suitability for use in a medical device. In this demonstration, visitors will actually get to develop a material and test it to determine its elastic (mechanical) properties. With the information learned, visitors will have a better sense of material properties. This knowledge may impact how you think about the common materials you use everyday and may also be critical in the design of a life saving aortic vessel replacement.

Extruder and 3-D Crane Lab
Chemical Engineering
A number of plastic and other polymer products are made by extrusion processes: ribbons, rods, tubing, weather stripping, gaskets, inner tube hoses and tire treads. The quality of the products strongly depends on the conditions of the extrusion process. Find out how chemical engineers use this device in their work.

The three dimensional control of the movement of cranes and their loads is essential to the efficient and safe operation of manufacturing processes. The movement can be analyzed by Newton's laws of motion and the resulting equations can be used to design effective algorithms for control.

Radio Tomographic Imaging (RTI)
Electrical Engineering
RTI is an emerging technology that locates moving objects in areas surrounded by simple and inexpensive radios. RTI is useful in emergencies, rescue operations, and security breaches, since the objects being tracked need not carry an electronic device. Tracking humans moving through a building, for example, could help firefighters save lives by locating victims quickly.

RTI works by placing many small and inexpensive radios around around an area of interest. Each radio is capable of transmitting and receiving wireless signals, creating a dense network of "links" that pass through the area. Objects that move within the area reflect and/or absorb the wireless signal, preventing some of the power from reaching its destination. An image of where the power is being absorbed can be formed using all the link power loss measurements, thus allowing one to know where objects within the area are located.

Electronic Instruments and Circuits
Electrical Engineering
This tour is a hands-on experience highlighting the laboratory facilities and instruments you will work with in your first courses in electrical engineering.

MORE TOURS TBA