STEM

NYU School of Engineering Expo Shares Research To Encourage Young STEM Students

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 04/22/15

This Friday the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering will share with anybody who wants to come by some of the most intriguing research projects from 10 disciplines and centers on campus. The "Research Expo ," as it's called, is open to the public to showcase what its students and faculty are doing. The hope is to woo young people to consider an education in a science, technology, engineering or math field.

Among the 46 exhibits for this third annual expo are these:

• The chance to interact with a life-sized, humanoid robot;
• A computer game to teach people about the behavior of molecules;
• A school of robotic fish; and
• A bridge made of lightweight, bendable concrete that can be walked on.

Besides sharing what departments such as Electrical, Computer and Civil Engineering are up to, the event will also feature initiatives from the university's Center for K-12 STEM Education, Game Innovation Lab and various incubators. The game lab, for example, will share "Carb Crush," a webcam game designed to help children diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes adjust to dietary changes, and "Bots & (Main)Frames," a puzzle designed to teach computational thinking.

"This is an opportunity to show the scope and importance of our work, especially to young visitors who might not have considered a career in a STEM discipline," said NYU Dean of Engineering Katepalli Sreenivasan. "Engineers and applied scientists develop practical solutions for critical problems faced by society, and our hope is that the work demonstrated at the Research Expo will light a spark of interest in students to become future generations of creative inventors, innovators and technology entrepreneurs."