The Michigan Tech Institute of Computing and Cybersystems’s (ICC) Center for Artificial Intelligence sponsored the participation of three Michigan Tech student teams in the ASME Student Hackathon, held during the pre-conference period of the 2024 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering (IDETC-CIE) Conference. The hackathon took place from August 18-25, 2024, and was facilitated as a hybrid (virtual and on-site) event.
The AI Center’s sponsorship included helping with travel costs, providing computing resources, and contributing the expertise of ICC research scientist Evan Lucas.
The hackathon, titled “Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Mechanical Engineering,” invited teams of undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, and research engineers/scientists to solve real-world problems using AI.
For the hackathon, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) each presented a problem statement. One of the MTU teams worked on the NIST problem; two of the teams worked on the AFRL problem. The teams were given one week to solve the problem.
The MTU team tackling the NIST problem finished third in that competition; the team was led by computer science PhD student Harsh Singh.
An MTU team tackling the AFRL problem finished 2nd in that competition; the team was led by mechanical engineering PhD student Nazanin Mahjourian.
Overall, 14 teams registered for the NIST Problem Statement, and 13 teams registered for the AFRL Problem Statement. The teams were from universities including University of Connecticut, Virginia Tech, Purdue University, Penn State University, Arizona State University, Northwestern University, and University of Texas-Austin. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prizes were awarded.
Learn more about the hackathon and view the problem statements on the IDETC-CIE website.