Local engineering organizations to host annual National Engineer Week events

  • Published
  • By Philip Lorenz III
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  This year's celebration of National Engineers' Week will take place Feb. 21-23. Local area activities will include a student design competition, an engineer-for-a-day program and a banquet. These activities are sponsored by the Tullahoma chapter of the Tennessee Society of Professional Engineers (TSPE), the Highland Rim chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the local Tennessee chapter of the International Test and Evaluation Association (ITEA) and the Tennessee section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

The theme for National Engineers' Week this year is "7,000,000,000 people, 7 billion dreams, and 7 billion chances for engineers to turn ideas into reality."

National Engineers' Week kicks off with the Math Counts competition Feb. 11 at the Manchester/Coffee County Conference Center with Richard Dix, a retired AEDC engineer, hosting the event.

The student design competition will take place Feb. 21 at the Hands on Science Center in Tullahoma. High school students in grades 10, 11 and 12 compete on two-person teams to design, build and compete with their design against other teams. They will not know what they will be asked to design until they arrive at the competition. The teams will be given kits with identical materials and will have about an hour and a half in the morning to design, build and test. After lunch, the teams will compete with their designs against each other. Prizes will be awarded to the top three scoring teams. Total participation is limited to 25 teams and four per school.

The engineer-for-a-day program is also geared towards high school students, generally juniors and seniors. On Feb. 22, the students will tour AEDC, have a pizza lunch and then go with a mentor to observe engineers at work. After lunch, some students will stay at AEDC, and others will go to companies in the local area.

The National Engineers' Week banquet will be held Feb. 23 at the Manchester/Coffee County Conference Center. Winners of the student design competition will be guests at the banquet as will students who take part in the engineer-for-a-day program. The guest speaker will be Rogers Starr, the president of Jacobs Technology.

Starr is a member of the AIAA and of the National Society of Professional Engineers where he held several offices. He was an NSPE Congressional Fellow serving in the office of Congressman Albert Gore Jr. He is the author of more than 15 journal articles and conference papers and 12 technical reports. He received his master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Tennessee (1967) and a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology (1966).

For additional information, contact AEDC's Paul Kelly, Tullahoma TSPE chapter member and chairman for the Engineers' Week activities, at (931) 454-6542 or call Harry Clark at (931) 454-4495.