I'm telling you, engineers love expos and conferences. I've been to quite a few of these and they're just as fun as the last one every time. It's basically a bunch of engineers and nerds getting together and sharing stories about how great it is to be in engineering.
This event took place at Coppell High School. There were many schools and businesses there looking for bright minds - high school student minds to be exact. Here's a list of a few of those who attended:
- Armadillo Aerospace
- AT&T
- Bell Helicopter
- Dunaway Associates
- EF Johnson Technologies
- ExxonMobil
- Fujitsu Network Communications
- General Motors
- IBM
- NASA - High School Aerospace Scholars
- Nokia Siemens Networks
- Sikrosky Aircraft
- Southwest Airlines
- ST Microelectronics
- Teradata
- Texas Instruments (TI)
The building was packed. In addition to the myriad of schools, businesses, students and groups, there were also student presentations. One that I visited was a student built solar powered car. It was quite the site and I got to ask him a few questions about his work. It's a project of about three years now, and this student worked in a group of about 8 students. There are 6 panels on the car that cost about $800 each with the total cost of the car equaling about $20,000. It takes ~6-7 hours for the car to go from 0 charge to full charge. It can go 40 MPH and drive around all day he says. The students made a good argument in pointing out that cars like these aren't very cost effective - a common argument when dealing with solar powered tech. If the skeleton of this car cost $20,000, and my Hyundai cost $13,000 brand new, there's some work to be done in making a project like this cost effective.
Great job Engineering students!
Posts
