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.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ganesh Thiagarajan

The UMKC Concrete Canoe team designs, constructs, and races a canoe made of lightweight concrete for ASCE’s competition each spring. This group is mainly comprised of civil engineers, but all majors are invited to compete. Non-engineers can assist but cannot compete in the formal competition. The regional competition is held every April, and the national competition is held in June. Design and analysis of the canoe takes place during the fall semester, and the canoe is cast early in the spring semester to allow adequate time for curing.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. John Kevern

The GameDev Team comes together from different fields of study to create video games. They compete in game development competitions year-round and aim to create a finalized and possibly marketable game product for the student game design competition.

Faculty Advisor: Michael Eichenseer

Members of the Robotics Team compete against other university teams for prizes at the national Robotics Competitions. For many years the team competed at the IEEE Region 5 Business Meeting and Student Conference  but in 2019, began competing at the National Robotics Competition in Marion, Ohio.

Faculty Advisor: Gina Campbell

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for aerospace engineering. AIAA is built-up of professionals from various disciplines involved in STEM fields that make-up the aerospace industry, such as aerospace, electrical, mechanical, and computer science backgrounds. AIAA provides a platform to connect professionals in academia, commercial, and research groups, allowing collaboration and opportunities to be created and developed.

UMKC’s AIAA student branch focuses on providing members with outreach to aerospace industry leaders, DBF (Design Build Fly) competitions, research publications for conferences, and various scholarship opportunities from AIAA.

Advisors: Travis Fields and Mujahid Abdulrahim

American Society of Civil Engineers

Mission

ASCE’s mission is to provide essential value to its members and their careers, to its partners and to the public. ASCE seeks to provide value by developing leadership skills in its members and supporting civil engineer leaders, facilitating advancement of the technology utilized by the profession, encouraging and providing tools for lifelong learning within the profession, advocating infrastructure and environmental stewardship, and promoting professionalism and the civil engineering profession.

The UMKC chapter of ASCE is very involved with the local Kansas City chapter by participating in several community service projects, attending the Annual Civil Engineering Conference, and the Mid-Continent Conference.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. John Kevern

Engineers Without Borders

EWB-UMKC is a multidisciplinary student lead philanthropic organization consisting of professionals and students from a variety of professions and fields of study working in tandem to help design and implement life changing services to less fortunate populations around the world. Through its projects and programs, EWB-UMKC provides professional and educational opportunities that encourages a global perspective.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Antonis Stylianou

National Society of Black Engineers

Mission

NSBE’s mission is “to increase the number of culturally responsible Black Engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community.”

UMKC NSBE members attend Fall Regional Conferences (FRC) and National Exhibitions. These events help individuals enhance their professional skills and heighten their drive to excel academically.

The Pre-Collegiate Initiative (PCI)–seeks to expose area minority high school students to the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

Advisor: Selena Albert

Interesting Facts

The symbol of NSBE has been given great thought and consideration. The torch symbolizes members’ everlasting, burning desire to achieve success in a competitive society and positively affect the quality of life for all people. The lightning bolt represents the striking impact that will be felt by the society and industry due to the contributions and accomplishments made by the dedicated members of the National Society of Black Engineers. NSBE has over 31,000 members. NSBE has 99 active NSBE Jr. pre-college, 250 student and 68 alumni/technical professional chapters. Headquartered in Alexandria, Va., NSBE offers academic excellence programs, scholarships, leadership training, professional development and access to career opportunities for thousands of members annually. With over 2000 elected leadership positions, 18 regional conferences and an annual convention, NSBE provides opportunities for success that remain unmatched by any other organization.

School of Computing and Engineering Student Council

Mission

The purpose of this organization is to represent, support, and provide an orderly method for government that represents all students duly enrolled in the School of Computing and Engineering at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Activities

The council promotes engagement and unity for the SCE students by hosting events to bring the student body together. Student Council also partners with student affairs to put on E-Week each year.

Society of Automotive Engineers

Mission

To provide students with real-world engineering experience. The whole experience of the buggy relates to what students will face in their engineering careers: Design, manufacture, problem solving, and time management, working with a team, budgets, and networking skills (just to name a few).

Activities

The Baja Buggy Team competes annually at national and international competitions sponsored by SAE. Team members design, build and race a new car each year.

Faculty Advisor: Antonis Stylianou

Society of American Military Engineers

Mission

The purpose of the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Student Chapter is to promote the mission and values of SAME through the networking of college students and industry professionals and government professionals.

These goals will be conducted through active participation of Student Chapter members:

• Lead efforts to foster trust and understanding through communications and collaboration among military, public, private, academic, and professional organizations.
• Leverage SAME’s culture of service to develop sustainable growth of students for professional professions.
• Develop opportunities and resources to train, educate, and promote professional growth of students.
• Contribute to government and private sectors at student appropriate levels to minimize the impacts of and enhance effective response to natural or man-made threats.
• Establishing partnerships with other Student Organizations in collaboration of outreach and professional student growth.

Faculty Advisor: Travis Fields

Society of Women Engineers

For more than six decades, SWE has given women engineers a unique place and voice within the engineering industry. Our organization is centered around a passion for our members’ success and continues to evolve with the challenges and opportunities reflected in today’s exciting engineering and technology specialties.

For collegiates: SWE provides collegiate members the opportunity to inspire future generations and have fun. SWE also provides collegiate members valuable access to a unique set of resources that sets the stage for a successful career.

Faculty Advisors: Megan Hart, Ph.D. & Sarvenaz Sobhansarbandi, Ph.D.

UMKC Distributed Intelligent Computing Association

UDICA is a student organization focusing on promoting education, research, and implementation of state-of-the-art advances in Artificial Intelligence.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Yugyung Lee

Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers

The organization is dedicated to live by our four values- Familia, Service, Education, and Resilience.

The purpose of this student chapter is to increase the number of Hispanic students pursuing a degree in the STEM fields at UMKC; promote the advancement of Hispanic engineers and scientists in employment and education; develop and participate in programs with industry and the university, which benefit students seeking technical degrees; improve the retention of Hispanic students enrolled in engineering and science; provide a forum for the exchange of information pertinent for Hispanic engineering and science students enrolled at UMKC.