EPICS in IEEE, an Educational Activities program, celebrated its 15th anniversary final 12 months. The Engineering Projects in Community Service initiative offers nonprofit organizations with know-how to enhance and ship companies to their neighborhood whereas broadening undergraduate EE college students’ hands-on expertise with engineering-related matters.
This system reached new heights final 12 months by distributing greater than US $226,000 to 39 tasks, participating greater than 900 college students and 1,400 volunteers and IEEE members together with proposal reviewers, mentors, and challenge assist individuals.
The standout 12 months caps Stephanie Gillespie’s three-year time period as chair of the EPICS in IEEE committee. An IEEE member, she is an affiliate dean on the University of New Haven engineering college, in Connecticut. Underneath her management, the EPICS program streamlined processes for gathering knowledge and boosted storytelling efforts for example the impression of its actions. Proposal functions almost doubled, and accepted tasks elevated by 44 p.c.
“Throughout my three years as committee chair, I’ve liked seeing so many college students worldwide have the chance to have interaction with their neighborhood and really think about the wants of their challenge stakeholders,” Gillespie says. “There are such a lot of methods during which these constructive experiences can trickle via their skilled and private lives.
“New management will convey new concepts, and I’m excited for the way forward for EPICS in IEEE and the continued progress of this excellent program.”
Pedro Wightman is that this 12 months’s committee chair. He’s an IEEE senior member and an affiliate professor within the engineering school on the Universidad del Rosario, in Bogotá. Wightman, who has been an energetic committee member, helped lead an EPICS challenge himself.
“EPICS in IEEE represents a bridge between engineering idea and neighborhood wants,” Wightman says. “It brings these two realities collectively for humanitarian functions and helps polish an engineering pupil’s educational expertise in order that they’re not solely know-how consultants however people first.
“I hope this system continues to develop and strengthen, as a result of there’s a lot want on the market but in addition so many younger engineers all over the world keen to place their power and information towards bettering the well-being of individuals.”
The next tasks, all funded final 12 months, showcase the passion and dedication of scholars to create and deploy options to assist folks.
An absence of entry to educated academics and high quality instructional applications threatens college students’ improvement, particularly in rural areas with poor infrastructure and restricted assets. A group from the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) in Jamshoro, Pakistan, addressed such challenges with its Augmented Reality 3D System for Interactive Learning in Rural Elementary Schools challenge. It reached a whole lot of pupils in underserved areas with a digital, sustainable, and hands-on studying platform that engages college students and academics alike. The group obtained a$4,115 grant to design and deploy their prototype.
“Many rural areas lack entry to certified educators and fashionable educating assets,” says Sameer Qazi, an IEEE pupil member and a MUET senior. “Our challenge seeks to bridge that hole by offering an interactive and immersive studying system that delivers an revolutionary instructional expertise with a concentrate on science, artwork, and historical past.”
The group from Mehran College of Engineering and Know-how, in Jamshoro, Pakistan, assembles its augmented-reality prototype of its distance studying system. Mehran College of Engineering and Know-how EPICS in IEEE challenge group
The challenge concerned 9 college students and two college supervisors from the college’s digital engineering division. Every member contributed to one of many three challenge modules: content material improvement, power administration, and the show system. Qazi was challenge lead for the show system module.
The group partnered with the Fast Rural Development Program, a corporation devoted to reworking underprivileged areas and driving sustainable development in rural elements of Pakistan’s Sindh province. The partnership helped make sure the group’s resolution was aligned with neighborhood wants and might be extra seamlessly built-in into the goal faculties’ curriculum.
“I hope this system continues to develop and strengthen, as a result of there’s a lot want on the market but in addition so many younger engineers all over the world keen to place their power and information towards bettering the well-being of individuals.” —Pedro Wightman
“From funding to mentorship, EPICS in IEEE supplied us with important assist that allowed us to convey this challenge from idea to actuality,” Qazi says. “I encourage anybody contemplating an EPICS challenge to grab the chance. It’s an opportunity to make a tangible impression on society whereas rising as an engineer and chief.”
Photo voltaic-powered greenhouse
A inventive group of scholars from BridgeValley Community and Technical College in South Charleston, W.Va., used its $3,200 grant to ascertain their Solar PV–Powered Smart Sustainable Greenhouse challenge. It’s designed to optimize plant progress by sustaining best situations and conserving power via remote monitoring. The group used Arduino and different applied sciences, and it partnered with Café Appalachia, an eco-friendly nonprofit with its personal farms.
The group developed a greenhouse system that includes solar-powered lithium-ion batteries, sensible irrigation, fan management, and IoT integration for real-time knowledge monitoring. Different elements included monitoring cost controllers, soil-moisture sensors, solenoid valves, move meters, temperature and humidity sensors, a 356-millimeter fan, and a Wi-Fi module with knowledge logging capabilities.
“We selected to work with Café Appalachia as a result of they’d an curiosity in sustainable greenhouse practices and supplied house for the system,” says group lead Joshua “Youngil” Kim, an IEEE member. “Their dedication to giving again to their neighborhood and addressing climate change aligned with our targets.” Kim, a former BridgeValley educator, now’s an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Charleston Southern University, in South Carolina.
The group expressed gratitude for the funding from the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society, an EPICS in IEEE accomplice.
“EPICS’ assist of this greenhouse challenge has been instrumental in permitting us to contribute to our neighborhood and provide instructional alternatives to our college students,” Kim says. “Because of EPICS in IEEE’s generosity and dedication to fostering instructional progress, it’s been a priceless expertise for everybody concerned.”
To study extra about EPICS tasks or to submit a challenge proposal, be part of the mailing list and obtain month-to-month updates.
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