THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF IEEE@VT
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September 5, 2008
Let ter from the chair
Hello readers,
Welcome back to VT! I hope
everyone enjoyed their summer
break. With classes back in swing, the
IEEE is planning a lot of great events
for the academic year. Our intramural
sports teams have already started to
brush up on their soccer skills. I encourage anyone interested to contact
Jason Pribble ([email protected]) for
more details. Christian Tergino, our
Social Chair, is actively organizing an
ECE Social at PK’s upcoming in the
next few weeks. Be sure not to miss
out on the free pizza and mingling. I
also encourage everyone to stop by
our tailgates for the football games.
We always have our grill cooking.
We have already scheduled
several “Tech Talks” for the semester.
Some of the companies include STV
Inc., Qualcomm, and MIT Lincoln
Labs. Keep an eye out for more information in the following weeks because you would not want to miss a
great session supplied with free pizza
and possible giveaways.
This semester the IEEE is running the HOPE program. HOPE
(Hands-On Practical Electronics) is a
program designed to educated nonECE students about practical electronics by having them build and test
physical circuits. It serves as a great
medium for students to learn about
the field of electrical engineering and
its applications. If you know anyone
interested in the ECE field who is not
an ECE student, please refer them to
Michael Fraser ([email protected]) for
more information on
upcoming sessions.
Lastly, if you
are not yet a member
of the IEEE, I strongly
encourage you to
join the organization
as a student member. The IEEE offers
a large database of technical articles
to its members as well as many other
benefits. You can join at
www.ieee.com/join or find information about our VT chapter events at
www.ieee.vt.edu. I wish you all a
great semester and the best of luck in
your classes.
Sincerely,
Bill Geneczko
IEEE Chair
The DISH ain’t done yet! Continue
reading to learn about what an IEEE
officer got into this summer...
Inside this issue:
Letter from the Chair
1
Summer Inspriation
2
Note From WIE
2
A Side of Sports
2
Are you an
IEEE member?
If not, you may
be missing out
on...
• Free technical
info on the web
• Great People and
Lots of Fun
Wanna get a huge
discount as a student member?
Visit www.ieee.org
and join today.
SEPTEMBER 5, 2008
PAGE
S u m m e r I n s p r i at i o n
By Kara Johnson, Historian
Every summer, the Center for the Enhancement of
Engineering Diversity (CEED) office hosts three programs in
order to promote engineering among various age groups. The
Student Transitional Engineering program is geared towards
incoming freshman engineers who would
like to get a feel for what college life is going to be like in the fall. The second is the
Computers and Technology at Virginia
Tech (C-Tech²) program: a two-week program targeting high school girls interested
in math, science, and technology. The third
is the Imagination camp: a one week camp
that gathers local seventh and eighth graders and invites them to participate in labs
and activities related to science and engineering.
This past summer Marc Lichtman
and I assisted in running one of the labs for
the C-Tech² and Imagination programs in order to introduce
them to electrical engineering. The activity was run under Dr.
Allen MacKenzie and was dubbed “The Crystal Radio lab,” in
which groups of ten to twenty participants used a small kit of
alligator clips, resistors and capacitors, and a variable capacitor
to construct an AM radio. On the first day, the participants
From your IEEE WIE
commit tee
By amy malady,
women in Engineering Chair
Welcome Back! We hope you enjoyed your summer
and are ready for a fun and busy semester.
IEEE Women in Engineering is a co-ed committee
focused on the recruitment and retention of women within
the ECE department. Last year was our first
year, and it was a great success! We sponsored social events, a mentoring program
(over 20 women strong), facilitated weekly
study groups and had a kick off event on the
drill field: featuring a "water pong" robot. We
want to have another successful year and are
looking to fill our remaining officer positions
for the '08-'09 school year.
Along with IEEE, we will be at Gobblerfest Septemeber 5 (TODAY) from 11-2pm outside of
Squires student center. Please stop by for information on this
semester's upcoming events. We'll be continuing our mentoring program, hosting a reading day study break and much
more!
I look forward to meeting all of you!
2
would pair up and each group would receive two PCV pipes
about five inches long and a coil of wire. They would wind the
coil, making taps at certain counts and turns, until they had
successfully created an inductor. The next day they would
assemble a tuner circuit out of a resistor and capacitor and
some metal prongs. Finally, they would finish their tuner circuit by attaching a variable capacitor and hooking it up to various taps throughout their inductors.
The headphones, made out of a crystal
piece that vibrates to create sound, would play
ESPN radio when attached. The radio is completely self powered and was assembled in a
total of two and a half hours. The best part is
that the design is so simple that the middle
school kids had no trouble understanding the
concepts. A lot of the kids came up to ask questions after the lab, inquiring eagerly about how
AM radio works and if they could build an FM
radio at home. With the declining interest in math and science among middle and high school students, especially female, it’s clear that inspiring young people through interesting
demonstrations of math and science is an important undertaking. If any one of the participants someday enrolls into college
to study engineering, it will have been a job well done.
A Side of Sports
by Jason Pribble,
Intramurals Chair
IEEE will be partnering with Eta Kappa Nu to participate in
various intramural sports. Sports this fall include men's and
corec 9-on-9 soccer, men's and corec volleyball, and men's flag
football. Individuals with also be playing tennis singles and
racquetball doubles.
Ieee’ s upcoming
events
•
Furman IEEE Tailgate, Tomorrow, Sept. 6, 9am12:45pm. Free food and soda for all ECE and CS students! See IEEE @ VT’s website for more details.
•
Intramural Soccer Practice, Sunday 1pm at Blacksburg
Park.
•
Membership Week, Sept. 22nd-26th
•
Next Fun Friday, October 3. Enjoy your donuts!!!
This newsletter has been put together by: Kevin Sterne