A method to their mad engineering

Christine Carrillo

E-Week is back and people are still dropping eggs from a 10-story

tower, building bridges out of Popsicle sticks and catapulting

bean-bags across the campus.

But, have no fear, each event will be closely supervised by

undergraduate engineers-in-training and will be done in true

engineering fashion.

Engineering Week, better known as E-Week, will return to UCI for

its 30th year Tuesday and will include clever competitions and

engineering events that will reflect this year’s theme, “Seeing the

Invisible, Achieving the Impossible.”

“I think E-Week is a great time to celebrate ingenuity. It doesn’t

just have to be about engineering,” said Mary Lu, a third-year

electrical engineering student and member of the Engineering Student

Council, which oversees the event.

The event will also include the EngiTECH Career Fair that will

have more than 20 local companies present to help boost interaction

and communication between engineering students and the engineering

industry at large.

The goal, however, is not only to introduce aspiring engineers to

the world outside of their physics, math, science and engineering

classes, but to introduce the outside world to the real life of an

engineer.

“Historically, when a lot of people think of engineering, they

think of mechanical engineering, but there’s so much more to the

field now,” said Bob Cassidy, the staff advisor for the Engineering

Student Council. “[E-Week] gives them a chance to kind of work

together and see how the other lives.”

Giving the public and their fellow students a chance to see

engineering minds in action is only one focus for students in E-Week.

The other, is to allow engineering students a chance to interact with

students in other specialties within their same school.

“The concept of celebrating engineering beyond the confines of the

discipline is something I think everyone finds interesting,” said

Derek Dunn-Rankin, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

“In the end, E-Week becomes an important opportunity for all of the

other engineers to realize that they’re all part of the world

changers, they all have a commonality and that makes them more

comfortable.”

* CHRISTINE CARRILLO covers education and may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at christine.carrillo@latimes.com.