UMKC IEEE Student Chapter News

IEEE Robotics Team Finishes in Top 1/3 at 2006 Competition

UMKC IEEE Robotics team as  members of the UMKC IEEE Student Chapter developed a competitive robot for IEEE’s annual student robot competition.  The long hours and many long nights these teammates spent designing, building and testing their robot for the competition at the IEEE Region 5 Technical, Professional, and Student Conference in San Antonio, Texas on April 8th, 2006 paid off.  .Our UMKC students placed sixth after the first round and finished thirteenth overall out of a field of 36 robotics teams.  What a tremendous showing in an annual event that our IEEE student members only started competing in last year!  Upon coming home, the robot continues to be a star at local events.  It is now being used at school outreach visits and is put on display at various engineering recruitment events.   

Contact:  Cory Beard, Associate Professor, email is beardc@umkc.edu and phone is 816-235-1550.

IEEE Students Log Hundreds of Volunteer Outreach Hours

Our Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) student chapter members have contributed greatly to our community, providing 100 hours as mentors for FIRST Robotics teams at Piper High School, Excelsior Springs, Winnetonka, Blue Valley, Independence high schools.  Piper took first place in the Denver Regional as the Highest Seed Rookie Team.  They have also visited and talked with an  estimated 500+ high school and middle school students in the Greater Kansas City area about robots, electricity/circuits, electrical and computer engineering and engineering in general and the invitations keep coming in.  Some of the events we have participated in are: Center Middle School's Engineering Discovery Day; Shawnee Mission School District's "Engineering Your Career"; Raytown High School's Career Day; Fort Osage Middle School Science Fair.  Students also spent an entire day at Fort Osage Middle School talking to students in all seven periods about electricity and explaining the difference between circuit types.  They’ve also done the same for Science Pioneer's "Science, Technology and Engineering Fair"; Renner Elementary School's Carnival; ARROWS; Girl Scouts; and the Boys and Girls Club.

Contact:  Cory Beard, Associate Professor, email is beardc@umkc.edu and phone is 816-235-1550.

ECE Student Honored by IEEE

Jonathan Rodgers, ECE student received the IEEE Region 5 Outstanding Student Member award at the 2006 IEEE Region 5 Technical, Professional and Student Conference in San Antonio, Texas.  Region 5 encompasses eighty universities across a twelve state area. Jon received this award for his work in building up and reactivating the UMKC IEEE Student chapter.  Jon served as Vice President for two years and President for one.  He also brought the Robotics competition to the chapter and served as the first organizer of that team.  He worked on the UMKC IEEE Robotics Team for two years.  In addition to this award, Jon also received the UMKC Outstanding Student Leader Award.

 Contact:  Debby Dilks, Manager of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department

Email: dilksd@umkc.edu or phone is 816-235-1259 or Jonathan Rodgers, email is jcr89f@umkc.edu or phone 816-645-7788.