NEW PALTZ — The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the State University of New York at New Paltz will host 1,000 students from a four-county region in an all-day event on Wednesday, Feb. 22, to celebrate National Engineers Week. The theme of the event, “New Faces of Engineering,” is designed to introduce students to the exciting world of engineering.
In conjunction with the theme, this year’s keynote speaker for 9th through 12th grade students is a female engineer from NASA. Jill Holz is currently the robotics manager for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Servicing and De-orbit Mission. With dual masters in Applied Physics and Engineering Management, she has been involved with the HST scientific instrument Wide Field Camera 3 since 1998. She was also responsible for the design, development and qualification of a wide array of unique and specialized tools used by the astronauts to service the telescope.
Throughout the day, 7th through 12th grade students from 31 schools in Ulster, Dutchess, Orange and Rockland counties will have the opportunity to experience what engineers do by participating in hands-on projects, including the creation of their own fiber optic circuit system. They will visit displays of state-of-the-art products designed by professional engineers from more than 40 high-tech companies, including materials from IBM’s museum collection, NASA, Honda’s ASIMO humanoid robot and LEGO.
New this year, 7th and 8th grade students will see the “Lisa Lou Anti Gravity Show,” which includes a floating beach ball to explain flight; peacock feathers to explain balance; and a madcap plate spinning routine that explains the center of gravity. Lisa B. Louis is a graduate of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College who, over the last 15 years, has presented her circus skills from Nagasaki, Japan to Atlantic City, N.J. Students will have an opportunity to learn how to do many of the circus skills shown in this program, including balancing, rope spinning, magic and more.
John Harrington, dean of the School of Science and Engineering at New Paltz, said that “opportunities to participate in hands-on mechanical and electrical engineering workshops, interactions with SUNY New Paltz engineering faculty, students and professional engineers from industry, and the chance to attend keynote presentations will afford these students a truly exciting, educational day.”
Major sponsors for the event include: Dyson Foundation; IBM Corporation; New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA); New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR); Panasonic Plasma Display Laboratory of America, Inc.; and Philips Semi-Conductor. Supporting sponsors include Applied Materials, Inc. and Schott Lithotec.
Other supporters include: Alcoa Fastening Systems; Alliance for Minority Participation; Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation; Conklin Intracom; Curtis Instruments; Fala Technologies, Inc.; FTS Systems; Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti P.C.; Hudson Valley Technology Development Center; Mid-Hudson IEEE; New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT); Pawling Corporation/Presray Corporation; PDQ Manufacturing; Smith Barney; Solid State Cooling; SP Industries/VirTis; and Zierick Manufacturing Corporation.
Other kiosk Participants include: Albany Nanotech (SUNY Albany); New Paltz High School; Precision Flow Technology; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI); Sematech; SUNY New Paltz School of Science and Engineering; and United States Military Academy, West Point.
For more information on all other National Engineers Week programs and events, visit http://www.eweek.org.
