Vogenau School of Engineering Celebration of Undergraduate Research

     On April the 24th Volgenau School of Engineering (VSE) held its first annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research Poster Session. A total of 39 posters were presented by many undergraduate students and more than 100 guests attended the evening at the Mason Inn. In my second year at Mason (2012 - 2013) I was really eager to collaborate in a research project. I emailed a lot of professors in my department about being a part of a project without any luck. I was disappointed then without knowing the difference of emailing a professor and meeting in person (In one year I tried the same thing but this time I arranged a meeting with my professor and I started a new project).
     I must say that the VSE as an engineering school did not fully encourage their undergraduate students to contribute in research activities. However, with the beginning of events where students can present their research activities, VSE has demonstrated the fact that they now understand the importance of undergraduate research. I was also at the evening as a presenter. At the evening I was mainly surprised to see many professors and department chairmen from the Engineering school. I think their support will help make the following events more successful.

A frame from the poster session from the VSE website

I would now like to talk about the project that won two awards at the evening. The name of the project is The Automatic Piano Tuner. One of the reasons why this project was successful is that the title explained most of what the project was about. The motivation behind the project was the nonexistence of an accessible automated piano tuner. The presenters (Lakshmi Meyyappan, Sara Bondi, Fritz Reese, and Jacob Morgan) were also very successful at presenting their project.

All in all I believe that these events will help promote undergraduate students to be involved in hands on work that combines what they learn with an application. This makes the learning process to become very through and makes a theory into an experience for students. I would like to end with expressing the importance of having an Undergraduate Research Journal where successful students can publish their articles. The beginning of an annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research has shown again the tradition of innovation within the George Mason community. We should continue this tradition with starting a new journal where undergraduate engineers can publish their articles.

Tell me about what you think. Would a new journal be good for VSE students?

-Talha