More Micromouse: Live Chat with Minji Kim, Outgoing President of UCSD IEEE

We hosted today a live chat on Facebook with Minji Kim, the outgoing president of UCSD IEEE. She told us about her organization, life at the Jacobs School and the micromouse competition. The transcript of the chat is below.

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    UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering We asked Minji Kim, the outgoing president of UCSD IEEE to tell us more about the competition. Minji: What was the most exciting thing for you at this event?

    38 minutes ago ·
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    Minji Kim It was very exciting to see students interact with each other and share their own approach. Not only do they learn by themselves before the competition, but they also learn from others at the competition - perhaps implementing new ideas for next year!

    34 minutes ago ·
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    UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Tell us a little bit about the Jacobs School teams and how they did.

    33 minutes ago ·
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    Minji Kim Sure! We started with 6 teams this year, and 4 participated in the California Micromouse Competition. Out of those four, 2 robots made it to the center, and placed first and second. :)

    29 minutes ago ·
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    UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering That's great! What do you think are some of the learning experiences students take away from the micromouse competition?

    28 minutes ago ·
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    Minji Kim Generally speaking, students get to "build" something on their own from scratch. These are some experiences they don't necessarily get from classes. For more detailed (and technical) answers can be provided by our first place winner, Alex Forencich .

    24 minutes ago ·
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    UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Thank you! Alex, if you're online, feel free to chime in! Meanwhile, Minji, how can students get involved with next year's micromouse competition and with UCSD IEEE?

    23 minutes ago ·
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    Minji Kim

    Any student (with IEEE membership) at UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering can join our Micromouse team here:http://ieee.ucsd.edu/projects/micromouse/. Any of those emails under "contact" would work.
    Aside from Micromouse, we also have 5 o...See More

    19 minutes ago ·
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    UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Thank you so much for doing this Minji! I know you graduated this year, so I was wondering if you had any advice for students here at the Jacobs School: What should they make sure they do before they graduate?

    18 minutes ago ·
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    Minji Kim Haha, no problem! I'm not sure if I'm qualified to answer this question, but I think they should make sure they find their passion before they graduate. And you only get to find out what you like by trying many things, and sorting "like" and "not like". So take the opportunities and try things when you're young! :)

    16 minutes ago ·
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    Alex Forencich

    A small note on building a micromouse:
    
    In building a micromouse, students learn all sorts of hands-on skills that range from electronics design and mechanical fabrication to embedded software development and debugging. All the little bits a...See More

    15 minutes ago · · 2 people
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    UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Great! Jacobs School students out there, take note!

    15 minutes ago ·
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    UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Alright, this concludes our live chat with Minji Kim, the outgoing president of UCSD IEEE. Minji: Thanks again for doing this! Everyone: make sure you read our story if you want to learn more about the competition.

    14 minutes ago · · 1 person
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    Minji Kim Thank you! And thank you, Alex, for the awesome answer!
    
    For more information about the California Micromouse Competition, visit here: http://ieee.ucsd.edu/micromouse/

    13 minutes ago ·
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    UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Alex: Thanks so much for your insights! This is great!

    12 minutes ago ·

Don't Pick Up That Mouse!

Teams that recently took part in a robotic mouse competition at the Jacobs School of Engineering faced a 30-second penalty if the picked up their micromouse to reboot it. Two UC San Diego teams won first and second place. Read our story about the competition to find out more.

Smell Your TV

Do you want to smell the cheesy pizza on your TV? Want to smell the perfume ad and not just take the celebrity spokesperson's word for how great it is? A two year experiment by UCSD engineers conducted in collaboration with Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) found that an odor-generating device for your TV or cell phone is a real possibility. Read the story.

Ring Ceremony Photos 2011 on Facebook

Ring Ceremony 2001 Photos are on the Jacobs School Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/UCSDJacobs

One of Nation’s Top Honor Societies Recognizes Mechanical Engineering Professor

Over the past 12 years, Professor Vlado Lubarda taught more than 100 classes, and more than 10,000 students, at UC San Diego, collecting an impressive number of outstanding student evaluations along the way. This year, Lubarda was recognized for his teaching skills with an Outstanding Teacher of the Year award from the California Psi Chapter of Tau Beta Pi, one of the top three honor societies in the nation.

This award is the latest in a long list. In the past 12 years, Lubarda has received three Teacher of the Year Awards for the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, two Tau Beta Pi Outstanding Teacher of the Year Awards and the Barbara and Paul Saltman Distinguished Teaching Award from UCSD.

He has advised many undergraduate students, who went on to attend graduate school at prestigious campuses, including Stanford, UC Berkeley, MIT, Caltech and our very own UC San Diego. Many of the students he took under his wing now work as engineers in the high-tech industry throughout California.

He also is the author of two graduate-level textbooks, which are being used at Harvard, Cambridge, Berkeley, MIT, Caltech and UC San Diego, among others. He also includes undergraduate students in his research. He has published three papers in professional journals with undergraduates, one of whom is still here on campus.

Lubarda’s research areas include applied mechanics, materials, and structures, from elasticity, viscoelasticity, plasticity, fracture and damage mechanics, to thin films, mechanics of composites, imperfections in solids, dislocations, micro and nanomechanics, and biomechanics. Click here for a list of his publications.

Crossing the Data Storage Frontier with "Moneta"

New Moneta solid state drive uses phase change memory that outperforms conventional hard drives and is faster and simpler to use than flash memory – the technology that currently dominates the solid state drive market. Check out a demonstration by UCSD computer scientists next week at the Design Automation Conference in downtown San Diego June 7-8.

One Village Philippines Project [Gawad Kalinga] / Global TIES

Check out this video created by UC San Diego engineering students who are using their skills to improves lives in a village in the Philippines. Learn more about Global TIES at UC San Diego.