October 26, 2009

Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers Makes History with Two Team Tech Firsts

Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers (SWE) has again set the "gold standard" for university SWE chapters across the nation with four 1^st Place awards at the SWE National Conference held October 15-17 in Long Beach.

Cal Poly brought home the Gold Level Award as the nation's top Outstanding Collegiate Section, and 1^st for Outstanding Outreach Event/Series.

Cal Poly also made history as the only university to have two teams tie for 1^st in the Team Tech competition.

"Nationals has never had two teams from the same school compete before, and there has never been a tie for first before," states Cal Poly SWE president, Lesley Telford. "But our teams did so well that they came up with the same amount of winning points-both the judges and other university team members were impressed."

The Team Tech competition involves a year-long, multidisciplinary, industry-sponsored project. Cal Poly worked with Lockheed Martin on a Hinge Moment Measuring System, and with Walt Disney Imagineering on a Vertical Drop Test Tower. Nadia Shraibati, a senior biomedical engineering student, led the Lockheed Martin project, while mechanical engineering senior Nate Hague and Eric Davis from Liberal Arts & Engineering Studies served as team leaders for the Disney Imagineering project.

Telford noted that since 2007, when Cal Poly ranked third in the nation, the group has been expanding its programs, especially outreach to K12 students. "Building An Engineer Day (BAE)," is one SWE program that brings high school students to campus to expose them to engineering. Last year, the event was so popular, SWE held it twice during the year to accommodate all the interested students.

"It made me incredibly proud to see that the work our officers did on BAE was recognized on the national level with a 1^st Place award for Outreach," said Telford. "Each year, we try to do more and do better, which is why we have reclaimed our title as best collegiate section in the nation, which we've held from 2002 to 2006, and 2008 to 2009."

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