SCE fully supports student efforts and activities, especially student-led initiatives to expand the number of student organizations available, by providing space, workshops and advisors to all student organizations.

American Society of Civil Engineers - UMKC Chapter (ASCE)

American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)

American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) - UMKC Chapter

Engineers Without Borders (EWB) - UMKC chapter

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE)

National Soc./Missouri Soc. of Prof. Eng. (NSPE/MSPE)

School of Computing and Engineering Student Council

Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)

Society of Women Engineers (SWE)

The Baja Buggy team functions like a professional engineering group, completing designs, ordering parts from vendors, working within a budget and building machinery to meet strict safety standards. The goal of the project is to replicate introducing a new product to the consumer industrial market. Students are judged on time management, teamwork, ethics and budgeting.

Throughout the six-month project, students spend an average of 20 hours a week designing, constructing and testing the vehicle, culminating in the Baja Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Collegiate Design Competitions. The competitions include static events (written reports and oral presentations regarding engineering design and project costs) and dynamic events (racing factors, such as acceleration, towing, traction, maneuverability and endurance).

Contact: Michael Carlson

Starting with a pile of rebar and some bags of concrete, the Big Beam Team is engaged in a real-world competition designed to test their knowledge before they enter the workforce by participating in the Engineering Student Design Competition, sponsored by the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI). The contest is designed to help Civil Engineering students gain the knowledge to design and build concrete girders for bridges.

The students must design and build a 15-foot long concrete beam capable of supporting a minimum load over its span. After the beam is built and cured, the team completes a load test and writes a final report for submission. Their beam design is judged based on accuracy, cost of construction, overall weight, largest measured deflection before failure, most accurate prediction of applied load, cracking load and deflection at maximum load. They are also judged on the quality of their report and the practicality, innovation and conformance to code.

Contact: Ganesh Thiagarajan

Human Powered Vehicles (HPV)s are aerodynamic, highly engineered vehicles that may be for use on land, in the water or the air. Some land-based HPV’s have achieved speeds of over 60 mph. Human Powered Vehicles are aerodynamic, highly engineered transport vehicles that encompass the use of only human muscles as their source of power and not motorization. These vehicles can travel on land, water or in the air.

Every year, a team of Mechanical Engineering Students participate in the single rider vehicle class of the Human Powered Vehicle Challenge (HPVC), sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The challenge counts as a senior design class.

Contact: Trent Guess

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is the world’s largest scientific and educational computing society. The International Collegiate Programming Contest pits teams assembled at various universities against each other to solve algorithmic programming problems. The contest fosters creativity, teamwork, and innovation in building new software programs, and enables students to test their ability to perform under pressure.

UMKC’s ACM Student Chapter organizes three member teams to compete against teams from other universities.

Contact: Brian Hare

Members of the UMKC Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) student organization, can volunteer to participate in the Robotics Team and compete against other university teams for cash prizes at the Region 5 Robotics Competition. The competition is a part of the IEEE Region 5 Business Meeting and Student Conference that can be held anywhere within a ten state region.

The robots submitted to the competition must be no more than twelve inches in circumference, no taller than three feet and weigh no more than fifty pounds. The robots are not remote controlled; they are programmed to run a series of tasks on an eight foot by eight-foot board.

After the competition, the team also has the opportunity to demonstrate the robot on behalf of UMKC to show K-12 students how math and science can be fun.

Contact: Debby Dilks

UMKC’s School of Computing and Engineering Steel Bridge team, the SteelRoos, competes in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)-American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) National Student Steel Bridge Competition every year. This inter-collegiate challenge requires civil engineering students to design, fabricate and construct a steel bridge. Conference competitions are held in conjunction with the eighteen ASCE conferences. Winners and first runners-up from most conferences are invited to compete at the national level.

Contact: Jerry Richardson