ECE Day 2016: Department Celebrates 50 Years

Electrical engineering students and industry professionals converged at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering on March 31, 2016 for ECE Day, hosted by the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department for its 50th anniversary. The day featured industry speakers, poster presentations featuring current research by ECE students and faculty, and Arduino workshops — even a jousting arena, lego competitions and a conversation with a Disney Imagineer!

Freshman computer engineer Elise Wong and senior electrical engineer Christopher Ellis of UC San Diego’s IEEE branch co-led the ECE Day planning committee, which included members of Tau Beta Pi (TBP), Etta Kappa Nu (HKN), the ECE Undergraduate Student Council. According Ellis, ECE Day was an idea that grew out of something else: “We originally wanted to invite industry to come in and tell students about the transition from school to the workforce.”

Logistical obstacles pushed the original event back, but Ellis says that the extra time allowed the planning team to make ECE Day a larger, more interactive event. Student organizations, including Divergent Engineering, Students for the Exploration and Development Space (SEDS), and Virtual Reality Club at UCSD (VR Club), showcased their current projects and encouraged interested students to join. In addition, Atmel Truck: Tech on Tour invited attendees into their trailer for an open house on Warren Mall.

Co-Founder of Qualcomm Irwin Jacobs gave a keynote speech regarding his life and career from academia to industry. Other speakers included Larry Stullich and David Pritchett, representatives of Northrop Grunman, and Slava Rokitski, who serves as Senior Manager of System Design at Cymer. Professor Mohan Trivedi and Assistant Professor Vikash Gilja of the ECE department also presented about their ongoing research projects.

Jacobs described how every student must decided whether or not they should attend graduate school, and specifically how he chose to apply to only a single school and fellowship, otherwise he would go directly into industry. “It hit home because I’m having the exact same thoughts,” Ellis said.

For the electrical engineers who attended, Ellis hopes they connected with potential opportunities to get involved, whether through student organizations or in faculty research. For future ECE Days, he wants to reach out more broadly to non-ECE majors and expose them to the exciting progress in the realm of electrical engineering.

“We want to get other students who are maybe bio majors or psychology majors to see what it’s like, to see what we’re doing, said Ellis.

Check out this post: A Conversation with A Walt Disney Imagineer

Spreading the Love: IEEE Workshop

In honor of Valentine's Day, UC San Diego's IEEE branch recently held a soldering workshop in which students constructed small circuits of LEDs in the form of a heart. Check out the designs below! 

 

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#ILookLikeAnEngineer: Ryan Collins

Here's the next student in our #ILookLikeAnEngineer campaign. Though this campaign began with a woman facing stereotypes in engineering, we wanted to emphasize that one does not need to be part of (or look the part of) a lesser-represented group in order to have experienced any biases. Furthermore, no requirement of a particular gender or race is necessary to show support for the campaign and to recognize that inequalities do exist within engineering. 

Meet Ryan Collins, a fourth year B.S./M.S. electrical engineering student at the Jacobs School of Engineering. 

Name: Ryan Collins

Major: Electrical Engineering

Estimated graduation date: BS ‘16, MS ‘17

Why did you choose engineering at UC San Diego?

I heard it was a great school academically. Besides that, the weather is perfect, there is sort of an underdog spirit that motivates me and the campus is beautiful.

What are your career goals?

I am obsessed with outer space, I would love an engineering career that involved space in some way. I would like to work with robotics as well, so maybe one day I will be helping to put rovers - or even people - on Mars.

Do you have a favorite quote or mantra?

Luck favors the prepared.

What are three things you find unique about you?

I am a huge batman fan, I can rap the entire "The Real Slim Shady" song, and art is one of my hobbies.

What does this campaign mean to you?

In my experience, blatant discrimination towards others is a thing I rarely see, but that doesn’t mean discrimination isn’t happening.

The truth is that discrimination also comes in the form of subconscious bias, also referred to as "Colorblind Racism". That is the idea that between two otherwise equal people, you will give preference to the one whose race you subconsciously prefer or trust. Many people who believe themselves to be completely fair may not realize this, and it is important for them to analyze their behavior from an objective point of view to see if they are inadvertently discriminating.

I can say that there have been times where I noticed that I have been "lucky" when I was chosen for something, or that somebody trusted me more than they should have. I wonder if some of the reason has to do with my race.

You asked to place the frame underneath your face - why?

Since this campaign is to break free from stereotypes, I would put the frame below my face to represent the idea that we can break free from convention- it is to show that we should think outside the box and not just evaluate things at face value. The frame does serve an important point it shows that we are perceived by our physical image, and people DO see us for our race.

However, our character extends beyond our picture, just as our person extends beyond the frame.

Just a thought.

Keep up with us as we continue to feature students and stories! Remember to follow the Jacobs School on social media to stay updated with the hasthag!

Teams on fast track to success at GrandPrIEEE competition

Twenty one teams from around California vied for first place in the GrandPrIEEE competition organized by the UC San Diego branch of IEEE Sunday April 19. In the end, two teams from Cal State Fullerton took first and second place and a team from UCLA took third place. The first UC San Diego team placed 10th.
The challenge was to design, test and build an autonomous vehicle that could navigate around a track in the shortest amount of time possible. The track was marked on a dark colored carpet with white tape, which in turn covered a wire delivering a 75 kHz sinusoidal signal. The winning team made its way around the track in 16.70 seconds. By comparison, the last team took 55.21 seconds. 
You can watch two videos from the competition below:

Halloween Pumpkin Carving--IEEE style

Nov. 3: Updated with new pictures, courtesy of UCSD IEEE and Tony Wong!

About a dozen amateur pumpkin carvers gathered Thursday evening on Warren Mall to compete in the annual IEEE Pumpkin carving contest. They could enter their oeuvres in three categories: scary, funny and IEEE spirit. Some of the entries included a dragon, the green, three-eyed aliens from "Toy Story" and a pumkin biting on another pumpkin, perhaps the most ambitious entry. After they were carved the pumpkins were illuminated from the inside using an LED circuit.
We're wondering if all that left-over pumpkin flesh will go to making pie?

Outstanding grads: Victor Lee

Under Victor Lee’s leadership, the UC San Diego chapter of IEEE grew from about 400 members to 630, becoming the second-largest in the nation. Lee said he’s just giving back. “I’m pretty sure I owe my success to IEEE,” he said. He is graduating with a bachelor’s in electrical engineering this year, but he’s not quite done with UC San Diego. Next year, he will be a master’s student here. “This is what I like,” he said. “This is what I’m good at.” In his spare time, Lee is transforming his parents’ home into a smart house. His latest project is an automatic watering system for his mother’s plants.

Boy Scouts coming to campus for electronics, programming workshops with IEEE

Boy Scouts from all over San Diego County will be on campus tomorrow, March 8, for the STEM Merit Badge Fair sponsored by the UCSD Student Branch of IEEE. Organizer and computer engineering student, Jeremy Kao, said the event is in its second year and designed to get middle school and high school students excited about pursuing higher education in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) field.

Last year's event hosted more than 150 area Boy Scouts who learned to "solder, assemble circuits, the basics of electricity and electronic components, the many sensors of a robot, and the thinking that goes into designing a robot," says Kao. This year's workshops will focus on electronics and programming.

We can't wait to see the pictures, but here is a snap from last year's event.  The March STEM Merit Badge fair will be from 9a.m. to 5 p.m., March 8, in the Humanities and Social Sciences building.

Engineering Cupids make unique Valentines

Engineering students recently made a one-of-a-kind gift for their Valentines: a light-up LED circuit in a glass jar. They also learned how to solder in the process. A few pictures of the fun below. Full photo album here.