The Innovative Technologies Complex (ITC) became a hub of boat building, zip lines and imagination on Saturday in honor of the third annual Engineers Week.
During this year’s National Engineers Week, also known as E Week, the Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science and a number of student organizations hosted a week of activities to celebrate the achievements of engineers throughout history with both students and local residents. This culminated in Community Day on Saturday, which over 535 people attended, including local elementary and high school students, prospective students touring Binghamton University and students attending Watson for next fall, according to Olivia Schofield, the Watson Career and Alumni Connections coordinator.
The week was designed to celebrate the feats, as well as the fun, of the profession, said Denise Lorenzetti, the director of Waston Career and Alumni Connections.
“Engineers Week creates a lot of buzz and gets students in Watson excited about why they’re engineers,” Lorenzetti said. “It shows children in the community all of the possibilities that come with being an engineer.”
From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. engineering student organizations held over 20 workshops to show kids and teens from the surrounding community the creative side of engineering.
Activities included a “Bouncy Balls” station, sponsored by engineering sorority Alpha Omega Epsilon, where kids used household ingredients like cornstarch, borax, water and glue to create homemade bouncy balls, then tested them out to see how high they could bounce. The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) hosted a zip line challenge, where participants devised a mechanism to drop a pingpong ball into a dixie cup using straws, balloons and cups. The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) hosted a boat-building contest.
According to Kia Zivari, the present of SWE and a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, Engineers Week is important because it exposes children to the STEM fields early in their lives.
“E Week enables kids to understand their options and see how fun engineering and technical sciences are,” Zivari said. “When kids are doing math or science problems they don’t realize the practical applications, and that’s why E Week is important. It exposes kids to the fun side of engineering.”
In addition to Community Day, Engineers Week featured trivia night, an exhibit on notable black engineers and a Watson talent show. The Watson Career and Alumni Connections office also held its first E Week Local Alumni and Student Networking Event on Thursday in the ITC, with 70 alumni from engineering companies in the local area, including Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, IBM, Raymond and Rockwell Collins.
The networking event featured Watson alumnus Srikanth Poranki, Ph.D class of 2010, who spoke about Watson and how the school impacted his life. Another speaker, Jerry Lavine, from the Watson class of 1991, described his career and the places he has worked, including Ford Motors.
Engineers Week is not just about celebrating the achievements of engineers, but also about showing current engineering students what lies ahead, said Zuzanna Rybicka, a sophomore majoring in computer engineering.
“I wish they had a community day like this when I was I kid,” Rybicka said. “The activities offered really gave kids a nice feel for the endless possibilities and wide range of professions within the many stem fields.”