Engineers’ Forum SEPTEMBER 2020
VOLUME 41 NUMBER 3
Page 05 ........................................................ COVID-19 Research Page 09 .................................... SEC & Virtual Engineering Expo Page 21 ....... Engineering Students Persist Through Pandemic Page 25 .................................. Spotlight: Design Build Fly (DBF) Page 31 ...... National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) at VT
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Volume 41, No. 3
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ENGINEERS’ FORUM
Photo / Chris Tieu, VT Spark. Instagram: @cttieu
On the Cover
VOLUME 41 NUMBER 3
Aerial drone photographs of Virginia Tech’s campus.
F E AT U R E S COVID-19 Research
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09
SEC & Virtual Engineering Expo
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21
Engineering Students Persist Through Pandemic
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Ware Lab Spotlight: Design Build Fly (DBF)
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National Society of Black Engineers at VT (NSBE)
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Julia A. Pimentel
Maaz Hasan
www.ef.org.vt.edu
Soumya Khanna
Virginia Tech - Engineers’ Forum
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Isabella Bartolome
Dianna Kim
@vtengineers_forum
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ENGINEERS’ FORUM OFFICERS
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Julia A. Pimentel Junior Materials Science and Engineering
CHIEF COPY EDITOR Dianna Kim * Junior
RJ Weaver Junior Industrial Design
MANAGING EDITOR
Public Relations & Professional and Technical Writing
Alexander Petsopoulos Junior Aerospace Engineering
BUSINESS MANAGER
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
Soumya Khanna * Senior Computer Science
* Welcome new 2020-2021 officers! (Background)
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
In the Countryside Photo / Sean Stroud, VT Spark. Instagram: @stroud_shotz
Jessica Barbish Junior Mechanical Engineering
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Welcome to the September 2020 issue, the first Engineers’ Forum magazine of the 2020-2021 school year! After surviving the spring semester and summer with our masks and social distancing, it’s finally time to get back into the full swing of things. Whether your classes are hybrid or all virtual, we wish you the best of luck in adapting to the changes! Our team hopes that you, your family, and friends stay safe and healthy. Curious about how Virginia Tech faculty and students are getting involved in COVID-19 research? Soumya Khanna highlights key individuals who are making tremendous strides with their findings. The largest engineering career fair at Virginia Tech, the Engineering Expo, is going virtual! Take a look at my article about the new changes to Expo and learn about who runs the show: Student Engineers’ Council (SEC). Maaz Hasan gives a glimpse of the challenges faced by different Ware Lab design teams. More importantly, he showcases their resilience in engineering new solutions in a time of uncertainty. Continuing our Ware Lab spotlight series, Isabella Bartolome highlights Design, Build, Fly (DBF)! If you’re interested in learning about this competition team that builds remote-controlled aircraft, this is a good read. With many engineering cultural organizations on campus, our team is excited to share this new series featuring different minority student-run engineering groups! Dianna Kim gives you a closer look at The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) at Virginia Tech.
Thank you for picking up a copy of the September issue of Engineers’ Forum. Let’s start off the semester strong! We appreciate your continued support of our mission: to capture the student engineering experience at Virginia Tech. Enjoy. Sincerely,
Julia A. Pimentel Editor-in-Chief
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**Photos shown throughout this issue may have been taken prior to COVID-19 and Virginia Tech’s recommended best practices, including wearing masks, and social distancing.**
Engineers’ Forum Editor-in-Chief Creative Director New Chief Copy Editor Managing Editor
Julia A. Pimentel RJ Weaver Dianna Kim Alexander Petsopoulos
New Business Manager
Soumya Khanna
Social Media Manager
Jessica Barbish
Writers
Photography Team
@vtengineers_forum
Jessica Barbish Isabella Bartolome Kashyap Bhatt Maaz Hasan Mehak Kamal Soumya Khanna Caitlin McConnell Alexander Petsopoulos Julia A. Pimentel Elisabeth Robb Maaz Hasan Jayden Remias Sean Stroud Thanh Tran
Design Team
Anna Lewis Aziza Louri Hayley Stout
Faculty Advisors
Peter Means Suzanne Irby
Virginia Tech - Engineers’ Forum
www.ef.org.vt.edu
Photo / Kendal Price
Volume 41, No. 3
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COVID-19
Artistic Representation of the COVID-19 virus. Photo / fda.gov
Research Article /
Soumya Khanna
The COVID-19 pandemic has infected more than 18 million people around the world to date. Virginia Tech researchers in the College of Engineering have developed unique ways of fighting against the coronavirus. In this article, featured researchers have developed a surface coating that inactivates the SARS-CoV-2, devised an ultrasensitive biosensing method that could dramatically shorten the amount of time required to verify the presence of the COVID-19 virus in a sample, and helped develop drugs for treating respiratory diseases including COVID-19.
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Research #1 Dr. William Ducker, a Chemical Engineering professor, has developed a surface coating that, when painted on common objects, inactivates SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Dr. Ducker is concerned when people touch solids during the pandemic as they can contract the coronavirus. “It would be great if we could put a coating on daily-use items, and the coating would inactivate the virus. Even though the virus would be on the items, it would drastically decrease the chances of getting infected. It would help relax people who visit stores, gas stations, etc. and stores wouldn’t have to wipe down things as frequently,” explains Dr. Ducker. Dr. Ducker is an experienced surface chemist and has been studying interactions with the surface for the past 25 years. At the beginning of the pandemic, Dr. Ducker realized the need for this project due to everyone’s fear of touching everyday objects. It took a couple of months to implement the project, and their research article was published in the scientific journal, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. The team of researchers that worked on this project were from diverse backgrounds. Two graduate students, Mohsen Hosseini and Saeed Behzadinasab from the chemical engineering department worked with Dr.
Dr. William Ducker. Photo / Ryan Young
Ducker on this project. Professor Leo Poon at the University of Hong Kong tested the project with his postdoctoral student Alex Shin. Amidst the pandemic, the team was able to get help from people in and out of Virginia Tech. A few individuals Dr. Ducker mentioned were Dr. Xu Feng from the Chemistry department who performed the surface analysis for their film, Dr. Stephen McCartney who conducted the electron microscopy at Nanoscale Characterization and Fabrication Laboratory (NCFL), and his son Matthew Ducker who carried out the statistical analysis. Within a day of requesting to be considered emergency personnel, Dr. Ducker and Dr. Feng received their approval. “I bought things from local stores and hardware stores as it was not practical to wait for weeks due to the supply-chain problems,” Dr. Ducker recalls. The coating takes a maximum of 60 minutes. The tests for shorter periods are ongoing.
Photo / Dr. William Ducker
The future of this project is to make it faster and better. Dr. Ducker is looking for funding and for students interested in working on this project. You can reach out to Dr. Ducker at wducker@vt.edu. It is important to note that researchers are not wrestling with the coronavirus in the lab! Volume 41, No. 3
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Research #2 Electrical and Computer Engineering assistant professor Dr. Wei Zhou and Mechanical Engineering associate professor Dr. Jiangtao Cheng have developed an ultrasensitive biosensing method that could dramatically shorten the amount of time required to verify the presence of the COVID-19 virus in a sample.
The multidisciplinary collaboration between Dr. Zhou and Dr. Cheng started back in 2018. Initially, they aimed to combine their expertise in droplet evaporation and nano-antenna technology for the application of biosensing. After two years of tremendous effort, the research was published in ACS Nano in June. “After the outbreak of COVID-19, we thought it was a good opportunity for us to dig deeper into this research and find new avenues related to COVID-19,” recalls Dr. Cheng.
Dr. Jiangtao Cheng. Photo / Aref Vandadi
Dr. Wei. Weifeng Cheng, one of Dr. Cheng’s graduate students and co-author of this research, came up with the idea to utilize the Leidenfrost evaporation process and integrate it with the nanoantenna technology in the project. The students engineered and utilized a partial-Leidenfrost evaporation process by controlling the heating process. Dr. Cheng elaborates on the wide application spectrum for this project and how they are talking about prospective application directions. The team is considering collaborating with other colleges and disciplines to further their research in biomolecules and testing in different environments. If you are interested in working on this project, you can reach out to Dr. Zhou (wzh@ vt.edu) and Dr. Cheng (chengjt@vt.edu).
Dr. Wei Zhou. Photo / David Franusich
“An exciting discovery was the rapid detection of diluted biomolecules and micromolecules in the droplet environment caused by the Leidenfrost evaporation process. The combination of scientific phenomena and research efforts helped us achieve recognition,” says Dr. Wei. The team of researchers working on this project are three Electrical and Computer Engineering graduate students Junyeob Song, Meitong Nie, and Wonil Nam, and two Mechanical Engineering graduate students Weifeng Cheng and Xukun He. “The students played a key role in making this project happen,” says
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“dramatically shorten the amount of time required to verify the presence of the COVID-19 virus in a sample”
- Dr. Zhou, Dr. Cheng
Research #3 Student researcher Spencer Mendola is a rising senior majoring in ACS-Chemistry at the University of Mary Washington. Over the summer, Mendola worked with Dr. Achenie in the Virginia Tech Chemical Engineering department. Mendola’s research project was to help develop drugs for treating respiratory diseases, including COVID-19. He developed a program that can predict the physical, chemical, biological, and toxicological properties of respiratory drugs. It also identifies which parts of the drug molecules are most important in predicting those properties accurately. One example of a chemical property is the solubility in water. Mendola trained the computer to recognize the similarities between all respiratory drugs. He hopes to use this model to discover and predict the properties new drugs. Many new drugs have not been studied in the lab, and his program helps to know the properties of these drugs.
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SEC Logo Photo / SEC
Student Engineers’ Council and Virtual Engineering Expo Article /
Julia A. Pimentel
The Student Engineers’ Council (SEC) at Virginia Tech is a team of 14 undergraduate engineering students dedicated to supporting all 11,000 students within the College of Engineering (COE) by organizing career and professional development events, most notably the fall Engineering Exposition. This student-run organization is also responsible for well-known events such as the Leadership in Engineering Conference, Freshman Committee events, and Engineers’ Week (E-Week). As an umbrella organization for design teams, professional engineering societies, and engineering-based clubs, the SEC provides funding to support each group’s endeavors in hopes of strengthening the technical and interpersonal skills of our Hokie engineers. Furthermore, the SEC opens many scholarships to all COE students, including those working on design teams at the Ware Lab, those involved in senior design or capstone projects, undergraduate researchers, and more.
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1. Shivani Bajaj ............................................................................................................. President 2. Alexandra Peck ................................................................................................ Vice President 3. Taylor Kulik ................................................................................................ Director of Finance 4. Tony Mistichelli ................................................................................. Director of Philanthropy 5. Camellia Pastore ........................................................................... Director of Administration 6. Mark Seymour ........................................................................................ Director of Relations 7. Mariam Hasan .................................................................................... Engineering Expo Chair 8. Ryan Gniadek ........................................... Leadership in Engineering Conference (LEC) Chair 9. Soumya Khanna ..................................................................... Information Management Chair 10. Molly Zuidema ...................................................................... Awards and Scholarships Chair 11. Gabi Dugan .................................................................................................... Publicity Chair 12. William Stadtlander ............................................................... Membership Enrichment Chair 13. Matt Genberg .................................................................................... Engineers’ Week Chair 14. Vitha Anumolu ............................................................................ Freshman Committee Chair In light of the effects COVID-19, the SEC is looking forward to broadening the scope of what they provide to Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering:
SEC Mission: To provide students with the tools and opportunities they need to succeed, both in and out of the classroom.
“Since we are going virtual, we can’t do a lot of the in-person events that we normally do. We have to figure out what we are providing our student body, what is our student body, how can we provide resources to our student body, how can we make sure students get what they want from the SEC, and how can we do more?” - Hasan, SEC Engineering Expo Chair Volume 41, No. 3
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2020 Virtual Engineering Exposition Addressing the student concern of not being able to attend career fairs in person, SEC is determined to “make Engineering Expo as comfortable and easy as possible.” - Hasan
Students talking to company representatives at the annual Engineering Expo career fair. Photo / SEC
Engineering Exposition, more commonly known as Engineering Expo, is the largest engineering career fair at Virginia Tech, with historically over 350 companies in attendance. In the past, the Expo has been held in-person. Given the limitations placed on university gatherings, the SEC is going virtual via Brazen, a user-friendly virtual career fair platform. The platform features a search engine that allows users to easily look up companies and read recruiting details and other company information. With a chat box, call recruiter option, and 1:1 video chat capability, Brazen provides different methods of communication. Moreover, it allows companies to upload their recruitment information and students to upload their resumes. Because of these features, Brazen is widely used by many other career fairs, especially the Business Horizons: “Super Bowl” event of the Pamplin College of Business.
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Students talking to company representatives at the annual Engineering Expo career fair. Photo / SEC
Approximately 6,000 people attended the 2019 Engineering Expo! Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, SEC is strongly committed to replicating the in-person career fair experience in an online setting. Mariam Hasan, Engineering Expo Chair, shines a spotlight on the behind the scenes since she is “responsible for setting up Expo from start to finish.” A glimpse of her tasks includes making sure the Expo website is up and running, deciding the pricing model, advertising the event on social media, coordinating Expo prep events, and performing outreach by collaborating with Alumni Relations and Link, an organization that helps coordinate sponsorships with larger engineering companies.
“What are the expectations that students have for an in-person career fair? How can I build that in a virtual platform?” - Hasan
Throughout the year, SEC holds General Assembly Meetings (GAM). The GAM before Expo typically reviews how to format one’s resume, how to give an elevator pitch, what to expect at a career fair, and similar professional development skills. SEC is introducing a Pre-Expo, a new addition to the 2020 Engineering Expo for all engineering students. Their vision for Pre-Expo is for students to register for the career fair, try out the Brazen platform, and get comfortable navigating the platform.
If you have any questions about the 2020 Virtual Engineering Expo, feel free to reach out via email to secexpo@vt.edu.
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What other events does SEC organize? General Assembly Meetings (GAM) “General Assembly Meetings are our primary way of interacting with our members and constituents. At these meetings, we discuss and vote on topics like organization funding, our constitution, faculty award recipients, and more. Recently, we’ve been transforming our GAM’s into events with a non-organizational focus like professional development or student feedback. We would like our general assembly meetings to serve as an engaging way for our organization to further support and prepare students in the College of Engineering.” Shivani Bajaj, SEC President
Representatives from design teams present their EOF funding request presentations to our general body at one of our bi-weekly GAMs. Photo / SEC
Leadership in Engineering Conference (LEC) “[The Leadership in Engineering Conference is ] a professional development conference that brings in a diverse group of company representatives and speakers in an effort to educate and work with our engineering students. The focus of the conference is to help students recognize and learn the value of leadership skills in various engineering fields and help foster the students’ skills.” - SEC website
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Another large event organized by the SEC is the LEC, a conference that offers hundreds of students the opportunity to network with industry leaders and learn how to improve career and professional development skills.
Distinguished Virginia Tech Alum, Edward Kennedy (VT EE ‘79), presenting the keynote address for the 2019 Leadership in Engineering Conference. Mr. Kennedy has been both a public and private company CEO and member of several public and private Board of Directors. Photo / SEC
On break at LEC, students ate lunch with a member of faculty participating in research where they discussed current programs at Virginia Tech and how to get involved in present-day projects. Photo / SEC
Representative from Capital One answering questions following an LEC presentation about engineering in a business sector and how to be successful in the digital age. Photo / SEC
Engineers’ Week (E-Week)
Students stopping by at our annual E-Week Drillfield showcase to share why they love engineering. Photo / SEC
“E-Week is a week-long event to celebrate the students in the College of Engineering and promote STEM careers in the local community. It consists of fun daily events, including friendly competitions, outreach events, inflatables on the Drillfield, and much more. We hope to add new events this year to get even more students involved!” - Matt Genberg, E-Week Chair Keep an eye out for this year’s LEC, SEC GAM’s, Engineers’ Week information, and virtual services by checking their website and social media! Email: General questions: secpresident@vt.edu Engineering Expo: secexpo@vt.edu SEC website: www.secrecord.com SEC Virginia Tech website: https://www.sec.vt.edu/ Instagram: secatvt Facebook: SECatVT Volume 41, No. 3
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PHOTOS PROVIDED BY: Chris Tieu, VT SPARK cttieu vt.spark
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Golden Fields: Flower fields like th
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Bolt bike on racecourse. Photo / Facebook - BOLT at Virginia Tech
Engineering Students Persist
Through Pandemic Article /
Maaz Hasan
If nothing more, engineering is a field of study that revolves around hands-on problem solving and face to face cooperation. The COVID-19 outbreak and the closing of campus in the spring semester has made these core pillars of engineering near impossible. For ongoing design team projects, both in the Ware Lab and elsewhere, work went from running smoothly before spring break to running face-first into a brick wall shortly after. All physical work on projects was immediately stopped, and with the labs closing along with campus, there was no way to continue adding to ongoing projects. Furthermore, with most everyone having been sent home, communication became limited to scheduled online meetings. However, despite the numerous challenges the pandemic brought, the design teams were able to do what they do best — engineer their way through as many issues as they could.
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Teams being unable to access their projects revealed an immediate issue. Many teams turned to online meetings to keep communication but had no way of working on the end result. With all construction being put on hold, every team had to change their project timelines. Almost every team had to switch to pure research and design work immediately, basing all designs on previously collected data. However, despite working towards the future, no team was able to completely finish projects. “We definitely suffered setbacks,” BOLT’s Powertrain lead Will Hom explains. “Obviously, we were unable to attend the race in May that we had wanted to make, as well as the other summer races we were hoping to attend.” BOLT went from expecting a competition-ready bike in May to now anticipating a raceable product in October at the earliest. Many teams face a similar situation, where the planned timeline is set back months.
A few lucky teams were able to compete based solely on reports, while the large majority were unable to attend any competitions at all. The inability to build and test tangible products caused many teams to take many steps back and practically restart for their new projects in the upcoming years. However, no team solved the issues sitting down. Every team decided to do what Audrie Corral, President of Human Powered Submarine outlines: “Rather than focusing on what we couldn’t do, we chose to focus on what we could do to put ourselves in the best possible position come the fall semester.” By switching to fixing existing issues in designs and beginning potential models for the future, each team prepares to hopefully go into the lab. Human Powered Submarine at testing their project prior to the pandemic.
“large majority (of teams) were unable to attend any competitions” - Hasan
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BOLT IV sitting in an empty, locked-down bay. Photo / Dalton Reck, @daltonreckphotovideo
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Human Powered Submarine at testing their project prior to the pandemic. Photo / Human Powered Submarine at Virginia Tech, @vthps
“We want our team to communicate and run to the best of their abilities” - Barnes
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Team coordination and leadership also became an issue. Many teams lost their senior members without being able to fully train the next set of leaders, since this is mostly done at the end of the spring semester. Some teams had to elect new leaders virtually and prepare them for the upcoming semester. Jack Barnes, Project Manager of Design Build Fly, explains how he and other team leaders have been using video conferences to train the new younger team to prepare them for future competitions, along with using social media to attract prospective members. The intent is “to get our [new] leads comfortable in presenting ideas to groups of people. We want our team to communicate and run to the best of their abilities,” according to Barnes. By focusing on leadership and training members, many teams are preparing to hit the ground running this upcoming semester.
In the end, each design team around campus faced an immovable object in the pandemic and turned themselves into an unstoppable force to face it. However, despite more challenges being presented, such as the Ware Lab being closed to anyone not actively working on the physical projects, the teams are working hard to overcome them. Every team is ready to “make sure our members are safe and healthy while also giving them the opportunity to get some hands-on experience,” as Jack Barnes put it. Will Hom says, “It certainly has been frustrating having to figure out how to adapt to the ‘new normal’ that became a reality, but I’m proud of the way we came together...and continued to work on our projects. I’m excited for what the future holds.” Audrie Corral emphasized how she thinks that students “have been incredible throughout these past few months. They have kept up with projects and really roll with the punches.” With no clear outlook of the future, the only certain thing is that regardless of the issues thrown at the teams, they’ll be ready to find a way to work through them. Design Build Fly team members assembling their aircraft before the pandemic broke out. Photo / Design Build Fly, @hokiesDBF
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Design Build Fly airplane. Photo / Design Build Fly, @hokiesDBF
WARE LAB SPOTLIGHT:
DESIGN BUILD FLY Article + Interview /
What is your name, major, and role?
Shreya Chandramouli Chief Engineer for Design Build Fly Role: Oversee leads, delegate work, and ensure sub-teams are integrated. When the team begins designing, building, and flying the plane, she oversees all operations and verifies the plane is being constructed appropriately. 25
Engineers’ Forum | www.ef.org.vt.edu
Isabella Bartolome
What is Design Build Fly (DBF)? Design Build Fly is a competition team. There’s an annual competition in Wichita, Kansas or Tuscon, Arizona where teams fly remote-controlled aircraft. The design switches every year between a military-style plane and a commercial-style plane. The rules vary drastically each year, so it’s a way for the teams to gain new experiences and learn a lot. DBF is a great opportunity for students to get involved and be able to build and see a plane in the air.
Why should students get involved with Design Build Fly and what are some benefits of being on the team? Professionally, being on Design Build Fly is something you’re able to take with you to career fairs and say, “not only have I gone through the classes in my major, but I’ve actually built a plane with my hands.” Recruiters love to see the application. Additionally, our team gives presentations to professors and industry professionals to validate designs. Receiving advice from experienced engineers who are out in the working world is beneficial. You can build very good leadership and communication skills on the team.
try as well. Engineers tend to do their own work, but if you can’t communicate your results with other sub-team members and your coworkers, then your whole system isn’t going to work as well as you expected. It’s also a lot of fun being on DBF!
How can students get involved with Design Build Fly? We’re different from other design teams because we’re open throughout the year and we have no application process. You can find us at Gobblerfest, O-Show, and other engineering recruitment events. I’m guessing we’re going to be somewhat virtual for our big meetings, but hopefully going virtual will be an easier way for people to get involved. We do welcome everyone: whatever major and whatever grade. I’ve been on the team for four years, so I know the traditions of designing, building, and flying the planes with DBF, but when we have people join who have built planes as a passion project in high school or middle school, it’s so exciting to see their perspective and apply that to what we do.
Teamwork and communication within the team are probably two of the best things you can get from any design team, but especially DBF. If you’re not communicating within your sub-team, then your part can’t be integrated and the plane can’t fly. You have to be in constant communication. If there’s anyone who’s following an idea without telling anyone, the rest of the plane can fail. Learning the teamwork aspect is something you can take into the indus-
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Design Build Fly team photo. Photo / DBF
Do you have to be a specific major or grade to join? We build planes, so we do attract many Aerospace Engineering majors. This past year, we’ve had more Mechanical Engineering students, which is very helpful because they have experience with the design process and manufacturing process; Aerospace Engineers know the theoretical side mostly. We value every applicable major. If you’re an Economics major and you love building planes, we’re open to that. Having experience in building planes is good, but we want to teach you. Our goal is to teach you how to build a plane and not just have you be able to help us, so we’re open to everyone.
What does the design process entail for Design Build Fly? We usually have a proposal due and, based on the proposal, if you get within the top 100 or 115 teams, you’ll be able to send in your report to go to competition. If you’re within that 115 buffer, then you’re in the competition. The proposal submission occurs around November. Competition and design rules will come out by mid-September, and then our final reports are due in
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February. Our report scores contribute to our flight score, so when we go to competition in April, the flight line (which indicates who’s going to fly first, second, etc.) is based on your proposal score. When you fly, there are usually three attempts and you’ll get a score on each. The final score you receive is normalized by everyone else in the competition and factored in is the proposal score as well.
There are three major dates: the proposal, report, and flight competition. - Chandramouli
How is Design Build Fly doing competition-wise? In Wichita two years ago, DBF won second place, which is the best VT has ever done. That was an amazing experience and I can say for sure after seeing our plane fly that it was so smooth and it was great to see it compete. We’ve also won fourth place before in Wichita.
Design Build Fly team members assembling their aircraft. Photo / Design Build Fly, @hokiesDBF
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We have a thing called “The Curse of Tucson.” We generally don’t do too well at Tucson because military aircraft have a lot more systems and components, so getting each one to work and perform properly is more difficult than you may expect. My goal this year is to win first place. It’s going to be very hard because breaking that curse has been years in the making, so hopefully, this is the year. I know this is the year, I’m so intent.
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We generally bring our leads and about six to eight more people who are genuinely involved and who can help us during competition. Of course, with 20 people from our team around at competition, not everyone is going to be touching the plane. Ideally, no one should be touching the plane because we want it to be ready to fly by competition, but each person generally has a specific component that they’ve been dealing with the entire year and, if there’s a faulty part, then that person can immediately help. Competition is a great networking experience and shows teams that there’s not one solution to building the perfect plane.
Design Build Fly Airplane Photo / Design Build Fly, @hokiesDBF
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“Once you get to the competition, you can nerd out because there are such cool planes. It’s exciting and sad to see planes crash; ours has done that, so we know what it’s like.” - Chandramouli
The competition brings in about 100 teams internationally, so people from Slovenia, Germany, and all over the world come and fly their planes. Your scores are normalized with the top-scoring person of each round, so that allows for equal representation of who’s performing better than someone else. The top three winners receive awards, a book, and money for the team.
What is the best thing/favorite moment you have gotten out of Design Build Fly? We have a lot! Something we do as a team before our big flights is stay in the bay throughout the night until flight time. We do all-nighters more often than we should and they sound miserable, but they’re a lot of fun because it’s people that are just tired but so motivated because they love this plane and they want to see it succeed. Once it hits 4 A.M., people get kind of loopy and we make jokes out of anything we see and it’s a lot of fun. Spending time with the team and really getting to know each other on a personal note when we’re doing something we all love is just a general memory that I can take away when I graduate and I’m so happy I got to do this with the team.
Design Build Fly aircraft. Photo / Design Build Fly, @hokiesDBF
Any last thoughts for potential team members? I was the only female on the team when I first joined and going from that to becoming Chief Engineer is something I’m very proud of. More importantly, I want to serve as an inspiration for young females who are going into the aerospace industry. The number of females in the aerospace industry is so low and it’s increasing slowly, but having just one female on DBF makes such a big difference. Right now, there are two other female leads on DBF, which is very exciting, and the number of females on our team has been increasing in general as well. I want to show people that they are welcome and that this is a comfortable environment and team. Volume 41, No. 3
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AEP representatives and the 2019-2020 VT NSBE executive board posing for a photo after a presentation given by AEP. Photo / Twitter @ NSBE_VT
The National Society of
Black Engineers at Virginia Tech Article /
Dianna Kim
The following is an interview with Christelle Jose, the Vice President of the National Society of Black Engineers at Virginia Tech. Jose is currently a senior majoring in Materials Science and Engineering. Photo / Christelle Jose
What is the National Society of Black Engineers? The National Society of Black Engineers, NSBE, is the largest student-run organization in the nation. Our mission is to “increase the number of culturally responsible black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community.” We have members on several levels: pre-college (NSBE Jr.), collegiate, and professional (post-undergraduate). NSBE provides its members with scholarship opportunities, professional and academic development activities and events, and areas for community service.
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What resources does VT NSBE provide for its members? Our organization provides its members with countless opportunities on the professional, academic, and personal level.
Professionally The national board hosts an annual convention where NSBE Jr., collegiate, and professional members are invited to participate. The National Convention is full of workshops, networking events, and a large career fair. Some of the companies that have attended the National Convention are Microsoft, Snapchat, IBM, P&G, and General Electric. NSBE also hosts smaller conferences based on region. Virginia Tech students are invit-
ed and encouraged to attend the Fall Regional Conference (FRC) of our designated region. Similar to the National Convention, FRC consists of competitions, workshops, networking events, and a smaller career fair. We’ve had several of our members get their internships and even full-time positions at an FRC!
Academically Having chapters on each level provides students with the opportunity to interact and learn from each other. The connection between NSBE Jr., collegiate, and professional members is done through mentorship programs. At Virginia Tech, we have a mentorship program based on major. For example, an upperclassman studying Mechanical Engineering would be paired with an underclassman studying the same discipline. This year, our chapter is looking to connect current undergrads with NSBE alumni. This will help new graduates navigate their way through the industry or graduate school!
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Young students from nearby high schools and middle schools working together on an activity during a PCI event. Photo / Twitter @NSBE_VT
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Personal NSBE emphasizes the act to give back to our community and to inspire younger children. VT NSBE has two sub-programs under its umbrella that focus on that: TORCH and PCI. TORCH (Technical Outreach Community Help) is a community service program. At Virginia Tech, TORCH works closely with PCI for more impact. In the past, we’ve held activities at the Blacksburg Local Library. One activity included teaching children how to build a toy car from a plastic bottle and other common materials! PCI (Pre-College Initiative) was put in place to inspire minority children to pursue further education in STEM-related fields. Our chapter focuses on middle school to high school students. One Saturday per month, we host 30 to 50 students at Virginia Tech for a full day of activities. A typical day consists of engineering department presentations, lab tours, and hands-on activities such as coding and robotics. Our most popular day event is the Spring Game where students watch our football team play from the President’s Box. Both programs impact our community and allow our members to positively impact those around them!
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What actions is VT NSBE doing to support diversity in the professional workforce, especially in the engineering field? Our chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers has always been driven to “increase the number of professional black engineers.” To help our students succeed we hold study sessions where we have tutors for popular classes, such as math, chemistry, and physics. Upperclassmen are also more than willing to share their experiences and tips to success with the underclassmen, as well as offering any type of additional help they may need. We also hold professional development events including resume workshops, mock interviews, and professional headshots. We host collaborative events with companies, too. These partnered events allow students to network with company representatives, learn about the company, and possibly land offers for internships and co-ops.
How has the Black Lives Matter movement impacted your organization? NSBE is constantly working towards increasing the retention of Black students at their institutions by providing a safe and inclusive area to grow both
Attendees visiting the Google booth at the 2019 Nation Convention career fair hosted in Detroit, Michigan. Photo / National Society of Black Engineers
personally and professionally. The BLM movement has increased awareness of anti-blackness and issues of systematic oppression in the engineering profession. The lack of representation in faculty and the lack of available scholarships are just two of the many factors that play a role in retention rates. Recent visibility has also prompted us to take more of an educational role in the Virginia Tech community about the experiences of people of color and Black students. We are building a tighter relationship with organizations like the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) in hopes of fostering a better environment for our members. We’ve also been contacted by other non-minority student organizations and faculty committees interested in beginning a dialogue about Black student experiences in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech. As a chapter, we hope to establish long-lasting plans to benefit current and future Black students. We would also like to note that efforts must not stop at simply starting a dialogue. Action toward attainable goals is what we need.
Lastly, what are your plans for the upcoming year, especially given these unique circumstances due to COVID-19? How do you plan on staying engaged with your current and prospective members? Our executive board has decided to conduct all activities online using Zoom in response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases. By having all events online, we are removing the possibility of transmitting and spreading the virus unnecessarily. Social media will also play a large role in staying engaged with our members. Over the summer, we’ve been able to hold a few events such as a “Senior Send-Off,” “Live Instagram Q&A Session” for the incoming freshmen, and a “Self-Care Sunday” series. We’re looking forward to a great semester full of impactful events.
To keep up with us, follow us @nsbe_vt on Twitter and Instagram!
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