BSC CyberCenter

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Last week, BSC conducted its annual summer orientation for new students.

We were very happy to meet some of our new students, and we would like to wish them all the best of luck during their time here at UHCL!

Click here for pictures from the orientation.

Christopher Early, the UHCL Research Assistant for our BSC Grant, was selected to participate in a Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) at the University of Houston - Downtown this summer 2015. Under the direction of Dr. Hong Lin, Christopher performed research into Machine Learning Classification algorithms and their potential application to the categorical classification of Electroencephalographic (EEG) data.

If you would like to know more, please visit UHD's GRID Computing site, or the main page for UHD's Summer REU Program.

One of our mentors from San Jacinto College, Bree Siller, was accepted into an internship at Rice for the summer. Below is a picture of her (middle) with Nathanial Wiggins (left) and Dr. Joff (right) from her presentation last Friday at the Biological Research Collaborative at Rice. She will be a chem major at UHCL and was studying nanotechnology in biochemistry. Bree Siller was one of the few community college students accepted to the program.

San Jacinto North's Robotics lab was recently featured on ABC 13. You can watch the video below:

Thank you to everyone who came out and participated in our STEM Challenge on Saturday!

Click HERE to see results from the Challenge!

Pictures have also been posted HERE.

If you participated in the STEM Challenge this year, please post a comment to let us know what you thought!

Congratulations to the winning Teams!

The Bridges to STEM Careers (BSC) program, with funding from the National Science Foundation, hosted its annual STEM Challenge on April 11th, 2015 in the Student Services Building at UHCL. 18 teams made up of 62 members participated in the competition at two levels. Winners and participants won prizes including scholarships, internships, robotics kits and various other gifts.

STEM Challenge 2015 was sponsored by Credexo Inc., Esyntaxis and AtLink. Additional support was provided by various other companies and restaurants in the community. Community college, High school and UHCL faculty members participated actively and served as judges, mentors and in various other capacities. Industrial representatives from Credexco, AtLink and SAIC also served as judges.

The challenge was open to all high school and undergraduate students. Over 8 different high schools and 6 different community colleges and universities were represented in the challenge. The challenge consisted of two levels of competition, with each team rotating through three stations: Game of Clues to challenge their math knowledge, Creative Inventors to showcase their imaginative skills and Robot Adventure to test their problem solving and programming skills. The event was limited to 18 teams, with a maximum of 4 members per team. 12 beginner teams and 6 advanced teams participated in the event.

During the challenge, each team spent 50 minutes at one of the three stations, trying to complete tasks that were progressivly more challenging, before rotating to the second and third station. Each task was assigned a point value, and each task had to be completed and demonstrated before receiving instructions for the next task.

To access the resources for the Video Editing Tech Friday, please save the following .zip file to your desktop:

Resources.zip

Here is the package you will need for the Web Development Tech Friday:

Right click, save as...

Thank you to everyone who came out on Friday for the first meeting of the UHCL BSC Club, it was a pleasure meeting each of you!

Don't forget to tell your friends about BSC, if you think they might be interested in STEM education, or in any of the events that we are hosting.

All of us are looking forward to a great semester, and we hope to see each of you again soon!

Background on the competition:

The Texas Space Grant Consortium Design Challenge is held by NASA and participating companies with the universities in Texas to create projects that directly involve students. These projects are current projects that NASA and other contractors are currently working on.

The competition is two semesters and this is the end of semester one. The showcase was held on November 17 at the South Shore Harbour Resort in League City. We had two teams complete, which is a major accomplishment in itself. One of the teams, RPM, scored in the top three teams and earned additional scholarships.

Project 1: Mars Drill and Automation

Abstract: The purpose of the project is to design a drilling process to extract a core sample on Mars at least 20 meters deep.

Team: Team RPM, Leader Carlos Cantu, Daniel Gonzalez, Fernando Lopez, Jesus Lopez, and Miguel Padron

Awards:

Showcase Awards (each student receives this amount directly from the consortium) - Second top overall team
- Second best poster
- Second best model
- Third best oral presentation

For next semester, a new team looks to create a housing for the drill.

Project 2: Smartwatch Design

Abstract: The purpose of the project is to get a commercial watch to communicate with the shuttle and feature necessary functions.

Team: Energizer Gators, Leader Toni Lampasas, Dat Tran, Chris Delagarza, Kevin Fuentes, Aldo Silva

Award:
- Best logo

For next semester, a new team looks to get the smartwatch to communicate with the middleware.