George Nnanna (left), the founding director of UMSL’s School of Engineering, and Professor Xin Wang give a presentation involving the school’s robodog during “SciFest: Engineering Expo” on Saturday at the Saint Louis Science Center. (Photos by Dave Benson)
Representatives of the University of Missouri–St. Louis School of Engineering made a strong first impression in their appearance Saturday at the St. Louis Science Center. Especially the robotic dog.
To mark the end of National Engineers Week, which was the last week of February, the Saint Louis Science Center hosted “SciFest: Engineering Expo.” Schools and organizations from around the region put up booths throughout the first two floors of the facility, and UMSL, which welcomed its first class of engineering students last fall, was able to display its credentials before a large crowd.
“This is a great opportunity to introduce the School of Engineering to the public, to the St. Louis community, and it’s a great opportunity to showcase the capability of the school within these communities,” said George Nnanna, the school’s founding director. “I think it went great, and we received a lot of questions and a lot of feedback from the participants.”
The UMSL contingent also received plenty of oohs and aahs from some of the younger future engineers in attendance, thanks in large part to its robodog.
George Nnanna (left), founding director of UMSL’s School of Engineering, explains the effects of thermodynamics to an interested youngster while Professor Xin Wang (background) discusses robotics with other crowd members during a presentation at Saint Louis Science Center’s “SciFest: Engineering Expo” on Saturday.
During a special presentation on the Science Center’s Energy Stage, Nnanna and Professor Xin Wang, the program coordinator for electrical engineering, exhibited a few engineering concepts such as thermodynamics and robotics, the latter involving a four-legged robot that Wang controlled with a hand-held device. After the presentation ended, several groups of kids waited at the edge of the stage for their chance to make the robotic quadruped walk, jump and stand on two legs.
“The kids are all passionate, all excited about the robot,” Wang said. “I think the UMSL robodog not only is a great research and teaching tool for UMSL students and for UMSL faculty like myself, it is also a great way to motivate the future generations of engineers to come to UMSL.”
It’s all part of promoting what UMSL has to offer. In January, Nnanna spoke about the School of Engineering to students at Highcroft Elementary School in Chesterfield, and about a week ago, he went to St. Louis Community College–Meramec to talk to engineering students there about transferring to UMSL.
“The reception has been great,” Nnanna said. “The integration of hands-on learning into the academic process is really super exciting, and also the connections we’re making with local industry, knowing that we’re training the future workforce that will drive the regional economy, the enthusiasm has been great.”
At a table in the Science Center’s Boeing Hall, UMSL freshmen Moses Prakash and Teddy Fallon were excited to tell high school- and middle school-aged kids about the tremendous opportunities offered to engineering students at UMSL.
UMSL freshmen Teddy Fallon (left) and Moses Prakash joined George Nnanna, founding director of the School of Engineering, to promote the new school during “SciFest: Engineering Expo” at the Saint Louis Science Center on Saturday.
“The School of Engineering is so new that, whatever you do here, you’re leaving your mark, you know? That’s, I think, the biggest thing,” said Prakash, who is studying mechanical engineering. “I’m only a freshman, but I can talk already about so many different engineering things that I’ve done so far at UMSL. I literally don’t know anybody else that’s doing this kind of stuff as a freshman at their college.”
That includes starting a new student organization. Prakash is the president and Fallon the treasurer of the Society of Automotive Engineers Club at UMSL, a student-led group that builds motorized vehicles to race in competitions against teams from other schools. The wide range of experiences has Fallon strongly considering changing his major from physics to engineering.
“It’s very much exceeding my expectations,” Fallon said. “There’s just so much I can do. I have my own research project, and I’m only a freshman. Usually, you have to be in grad school to get that, but here, I am starting the resume builders right now.”
It’s all part of the allure of starting something from scratch.
“It’s exciting, and we are building it as we’re flying it and making some tweaks and changes as we move along,” Nnanna said. “That’s the excitement about creating a new school.”
