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By Bryan Hay
Lafayette engineers know how to have fun. In observance of Engineers Week, they spread their can-do, hands-on spirit by inviting the entire campus to experience their creative energy in Acopian Engineering Center.
Zev Granowitz ’21 (mechanical engineering), president of Lafayette’s American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), designed an Engineering Crawl as part of activities and events held to mark Engineers Week (Feb. 17-21) with hands-on demonstrations that included welding, soldering, and laser cutting. Over the course of the week, a multitude of students majoring in biology, computer science, economics, psychology, international affairs, government and law, math, and policy studies joined with students from all engineering disciplines. ASME joined with Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) to share skills from various engineering disciplines to help participants assemble components for a working gearbox they could take home.
“My inspiration for this event came from people seeing engineering as a boring major with difficult classes,” Granowitz says. “For me, engineering is a hands-on, exciting way to express my creativity, and I wanted other people to see that side of engineering as well.”
Engineering Week occurs every year, and as part of that, every engineering club plans an event related to its major. This year’s full slate of activities included making “elephant toothpaste,” with Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), making mozzarella with American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society’s “Tips for Applying to Grad School,” the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), SHPE, and Society of Women Engineers’ STEM Escape Room, Society of Environmental Engineers and Scientists’ Bridge to Sustainable Future Competition, and NSBE’s Real Talk with NSBE.
“Usually, the events are separate and do not attract much interest outside their targeted disciplines,” adds Granowitz. “The Engineering Crawl brings together the engineering disciples for an interactive activity, which allows participants to take home a functioning device that they built themselves. I’m hoping that non-engineers and engineers alike go home with a new perspective on what their fellow students are doing in engineering.”