Thursday, November 15, 2012

Volunteers Needed - NSBE, SHPE, and SWE 1st Annual Joint Holiday Potluck Party

Getting excited for the holidays?  It's a great opportunity to enjoy time with friends and family at the 1st Joint NSBE, SHPE, and SWE Holiday Potluck Party on Friday, November 30th.  We are looking for a few volunteers to help out the night of the party, including: decoration set-up (two additional people), photo booth (additional volunteers to work with someone already coordinating it), cookie decorating (two additional people), and clean-up volunteers (need up to five people).  Please contact either Anita Satkiewicz anita.satkiewicz@swe.org or Jessica Mattis jessica.mattis@comcast.net if you are able to help out.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Upcoming Event - Royal Oak Book Club

Event: Royal Oak Book Club
Date: December 16, 2012
Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Location: Jessica Makäe's casa
Cost: Potluck, contact Jessica for info
Parking: Street parking, no meters
Point of contact: Jessica Makäe jessica@themakaes.com

Other info:

Discussing John C. Maxwell's "The Five Levels of Leadership".

Upcoming Event - Univ Liggett School lecture "Gender and Achievement Choices"

Event: University Liggett School lecture "Gender and Achievement Choices"
Date: November 8, 2012
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: University Liggett School, 1045 Cook, Grosse Pointe Woods, MI 48236
Parking: Parking lot
Cost: Free
RSVP (required): www.liggetteccleslecture.eventbrite.com

Other info:

University Liggett School is hosting a lecture series to celebrate our school's legacy of educational excellence and tradition of educating girls.  These lectures are free and are open to the community.  The first lecture will be by Dr. Jacquelynne Eccles.  She will give a lecture on "Gender and Achievement Choices".  Dr. Eccles is the McKeachie/Pintrich Distinguised University Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Michigan, as well as a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Social Research, also at UM.  She is Director of the Gender and Achievement Research Program at ISR and editor of Developmental Psychology.  Over the past 30 years, Dr. Eccles has conducted research on a wide variety of topics, including gender-role socialization, teacher expectancies, classroom influences on student motivation, and social development in the family and school context.  She will present an interesting conversation for women, parents, teachers, and anyone interested in understanding how and why we make the choices we do.

Event Report - Tour of Dr. Bir's Lab @ Wayne State

For the SWE-Detroit October event, we took a trip down to Wayne State's Biomedical Engineering building for a tour of the Biomechanics lab.  Dr. Cynthia Bir was the keynote speaker at our banquet in 2010 and is a professor in biomedical engineering.  She has research interests in ballistics and sports mechanics, and you can read her complete bio here.

We were able to hear about the history of biomedical engineering at WSU, which goes back over 50 years.  It started as an area of concentration for engineering, with a graduate program developed in 1998.  A full range of degree programs was offered in 2010.  One of the college's most noteworthy moments came in 1960.  The WSU Tolerance Curve, which predicts the risk of head injury, was developed by Professors H.R. Lissner and Larry Patrick.  Today, this work remains the foundation for motor vehicle and sports equipment safety standards throughout the world.

Part of the tour was in the sled area, where we saw crash sleds that are used for both military and automotive testing.  We also saw the ballistics lab, that looks at human response to non-lethal munitions and the effectiveness of body armor.  It included a gun test range, which uses a universal receiver for firing.

Dr. Bir also has a sports injury biomechanics lab.  This lab is responsible for certifying boxing gloves and headgear for USA Boxing!  It is also used to test prototype protective sports equipment, including baseball, softball, and football.

Recently, Dr. Bir has been involved with the television show Sport Science on ESPN, as well as being featured on Good Morning America, after taking part in the Discovery Channel's Curiosity Plane Crash, which used a test crash of a Boeing 727 in the Sonoran desert to learn more about what actually happens to passengers when a plane goes down.  Dr. Bir took charge of the crash test dummies, examining them immediately after the plane hit the ground, to get an idea of what injuries might have been sustained.  That show premiered on the Discovery Channel on Sunday, October 7.


Top picture: SWE-D members check out the sleds.  Bottom picture: SWE-D members Kristy and Christine get a closer look at the 10 yr old thoracic model for sport equipment testing.

Upcoming Affiliate Event - NSBE General Body Meeting

Event: NSBE General Body Meeting "Engineers Tapping into the Entrepreneur Inside"
Date: November 14, 2012
Time: 5:30 - 8:30 PM
Location: Lawrence Tech University, Science Building Room S100, 21000 W. 10 Mile Road, Southfield, MI 48075
Parking: Parking lot
Point of contact: Shani Allison r4aepr@nsbe-ae.org

Other info:
http://www.nsbe-dae.org/index.html


Volunteer Needed - Univ of Detroit Mercy SWE Collegiate Section Counselor

The University of Detroit Mercy urgently needs a professional SWE member to fill the position of a Collegiate Section Counselor.  If you have any questions or would like to volunteer, please contact Stacy Lueneburg sthayer.swe@gmail.com.

Here is more info about what a Collegiate Section Counselor actually does.