Happy New Year from the FAMU-FSU student chapter! We are so excited for
the upcoming semester and are eager to start off the new semester strong. Spring semester is a very busy time for us as we spend most of it preparing for the ASCE Southeast Student Conference in March. Preparations have already begun and we can't wait to compete in Orlando this year!
As we move forward into the new year, we wanted to highlight some of our accomplishments from the end of last semester. It was certainly busy as we juggled promoting the club with our everyday schoolwork, however we accomplished a lot in a short period of time.
In October, our chapter organized a site visit to the City of Tallahassee
Weems Road Extension project to learn about the field and contractual
work of engineers in structural, transportation, and construction projects. Eleven of
our members had the opportunity to step on site and go on a walking tour
of the construction site. We were able to ask a great deal of questions and
appreciated the insight of the engineers who took the time to meet with us.
We were able to arrange a second site visit in October to learn
about other engineering applications occurring close to home in Innovation Park. The National High Magnetic Laboratory gave a private tour to six of our members. Magnetic
projects range in magnitude and application from local groups utilizing the mass
spectrometer to global groups traveling for a section of time to use the facilities. No engineers were harmed on this trip, however, it was confirmed that a frog was once levitated on the premises.
Up next in November, the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering’s Green and Gold
Tailgate was a great success this year! We decorated a tailgating space in
competition against all the other student organizations and placed first for our
spirit! Members had a great time celebrating our joint university. This event also
served as an outreach opportunity to recruit new student members and showcase our accomplishments to faculty and alumni.
The FAMU-FSU ASCE-FES Annual Sporting Clays Fundraiser, started by one of our most famous past presidents, Garit Poire, is a great way for our members to network with professionals and for our chapter to raise money. This year we had 8 teams participating, and raised over $2000 dollars for our student chapter! We want to extend a big thank you to all of the Sponsors and participants for this event, it's because of you that we have such opportunities and success!
In a rare visit to a student campus, a presenter from Walt Disney Imagineering came to one of our meetings to give us an exclusive look into their secretive organization. We learned about the level of creative problem solving that goes into engineering rides and projects at Walt Disney World and got an even more exclusive look into the design of the Avatar landscape. We thank Paul Johnson, PE for making the drive all the way to our campus and giving our members such a glimpse of Disney magic.
The ASCE-FES-ITE Joint Holiday party was held at a local bar right before our winter break, and nearly all of our student board attended. It was a great networking opportunity and in the holiday spirit for this event we all donated toys to the Marine Toys for Tots charity organization, which donates toys to children of families in need who cannot afford gifts in the holiday season. We are happy we were able to help our respective parent chapters with this successful event.
We are excited to start the new year, and our resolutions this year as a chapter are
to start a new tradition for our chapter, continue to be involved in our community
and host more charitable/outreach events, and to have a great time at the SE Regional
Conference!