Undergraduate Students Archives | Electrical and Computer Engineering Newsblog

MTU RedTeam Places Third in CyberSEED CTF

Published March 22, 2023

CyberSEED with light bulb and plant growht.

The MTU RedTeam competed in the 2023 CyberSEED Capture the Flag (CTF) competition, held virtually March 4. The highly competitive seven-hour collegiate CTF engaged 333 students and 118 teams from universities across the country.

Placing third, RedTeam Team 1 earned 2,390 points with 93.41% accuracy. Team members were undergraduates Ryan Klemm (computer science), Audrey LaCost (chem informatics), Joshua Stiebel (computer engineering) and Noah Holland (cybersecurity). The team was awarded a $2,000 prize.

ReadTeam Team 2 placed 73rd in the contest. Team members were undergraduates Noah Hansen, Riley Meeves and Mason Staedt (all cybersecurity) and master’s student Gary Tropp (cybersecurity).

RedTeam Team 3 finished 99th in the event. Team members were undergraduates Ava Gullitti (electrical engineering) and Joshua Stevens (cybersecurity) and master’s student Dev Sanghani (cybersecurity).

The annual CyberSEED CTF event is hosted by the University of Connecticut. The competition’s cybersecurity challenges included a set of flags focusing on reverse engineering, web application security, network traffic analysis, cryptography and other challenges.

Maurer, Brock, and Hilliker Present at Defense Manufacturing Conference

Published December 13, 2022

By Sue Hill

The Defense Manufacturing Conference (DMC 2022), was held in Tampa, Florida, on December 5–8. DMC is the nation’s annual forum for enhancing and leveraging the efforts of engineers, managers, technology leaders, scientists, and policy makers across the defense manufacturing industrial base.

Developing Disruptive and Transformational Solutions

Three electrical and computing engineering students presenting their research were:

Michael Maurer (PhD Candidate)
Presentation Title: Periodically Poled Polymers as an Entangled Photon Source

Giard Brock (Undergraduate)
Presentation Title: Ultra-violet Liquid Crystal Display Resin Printer Exposure Method for Rapid Prototyping of Printed Circuit Boards

Austin Hilliker (Undergraduate)
Presentation Title: Utilization of a Commercial Off the Shelf Laser Engraver for Rapid Production of Printed Circuit Boards

Three students check in for the conference. — Giard Brock, Michael Maurer, and Austin Hilliker

Two students standing near a project slide with their presentation titles.

Two students at a table in the audience.

Anna Browne Wins President’s Award for Leadership

Published April 26, 2021

By Sue Hill

Outstanding students, staff, and a special alumni were honored Friday (April 16, 2021) during Michigan Tech’s 27th Annual Student Leadership Awards Virtual Ceremony.

Anna Browne was selected to receive the President’s Award for Leadership. Brown is pursuing a degree in electrical engineering with a concentration in electrical power. She has shown excellent success during her time as a student. Her involvement and contributions to Michigan Tech’s campus are numerous and cast such a wide net as shown in her 13 nominations.

Anna, who has had multiple internships at Black & Veatch and Westwood Professional Services, has served in project and team leader roles with the Alternative Energy Enterprise on projects like the Baraga Community solar and the on-campus mine water geothermal system. She’s been an active part of the residence education and housing services community as a senior student resident assistant and resident assistant for three years.

She’s also been a valuable contributing member to the Center for Diversity and Inclusion community. Anna has left a mark on Michigan Tech’s community. In her essay she writes how she strived to be a role model for others through community building.

She wrote, “Through my Michigan Tech Experience, my values of leadership, community, openness, and integrity have been demonstrated through every aspect of my involvement. In trying to create a supportive community, I have strived to give a sense of comfort and belonging to those without a place. Michigan Tech has helped me find my values and my identities, and I hope through my involvement that I have left a positive mark on Michigan Tech as it has left on me.”

By Student Leadership and Involvement.

27th Annual Student Leadership Awards

MTU Team Among Winners of TiM$10K Challenge

Published May 28, 2020

By Sue Hill

Group of five team members. — L-R: Brian Parvin, Paul Allen, David Brushaber, Alex Kirchner, and Kurtis Alessi

A Michigan Tech team is among the winners of the SICK Inc. TiM$10K Challenge. For the second year, students from universities around the country were invited to participate in the challenge, designed to support innovation and student achievement in automation and technology.

For the competition, teams were supplied with a 270-foot SICK LiDAR sensor and accessories, and challenged to solve a problem, create a solution or bring a new application to any industry that utilizes the SICK LiDAR.

The Tech team members — Brian Parvin, Kurtis Alessi, Alex Kirchner, David Brushaber and Paul Allen — earned Honorable Mention (fourth place overall) for their project, Evaluating Road Markings (the Road Stripe Evaluator). The innovative product aims to help resolve issues caused by poor road markings while reducing maintenance costs and improving motorist safety.

Each team was asked to submit a video and paper for judging upon completion of its project. A panel of judges decided the winning submissions based on creativity and innovation, ability to solve a customer problem, commercial potential, entrepreneurship of the team, and reporting.

“This was a unique project in that the team was required to identify a problem and develop a solution to it that is based on SICK’s TiM LiDAR — most teams are handed a problem and asked to create a solution,” said team advisor Tony Pinar, senior design coordinator in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “I think this format allowed the team to exercise even more innovation than a ‘typical’ project.”

Pinar said the team was well organized and demonstrated an excellent work ethic from day one. “It was exciting to watch them identify a salient problem and develop a functional proof-of-concept solution despite the setbacks that affected us all after spring break,” he said.

SICK is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of sensors, safety systems, machine vision, encoders and automatic identification products for industrial applications.

Elementary Students Build Circuits

Published February 5, 2020

By Sue Hill

Last Friday (Jan. 31, 2020), students from Michigan Tech, along with the Lake Linden-Hubbell eighth grade eCYBERMISSION team, visited the fifth-grade classes at Calumet-Laurium-Keweenaw Elementary. Students in each fifth-grade class learned about electrical engineering by making circuits from Play-Doh, creating a paper circuit, and building a small wiggling “BouncyBOT.”

The fifth graders were very curious about Michigan Tech and what it means to be a college student in engineering. They asked the Tech representatives about projects they had worked on during their time on campus, as well as what they did in high school to get ready for college.

These students—coming together from the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mind Trekkers—represent the great characteristics of the Tech community: they stepped up to give back through hands-on engagement with engineering and science.

Better to Light a Candle: Chapter Two

Published May 1, 2019

By Sue Hill

EE4800 Poster — Figure 1: EE4800 course poster.

Michigan Tech’s new course in printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing is the topic of a series of columns in I-Connect 007. The second column “Better to Light a Candle” Chapter Two—Introduction to PCB Fabrication,” by Marc Carter, features an interview between Marc Carter, Christopher Middlebrook (ECE), and the students in the PCB manufacturing class.

Better to Light a Candle: Chapter Two—Introduction to PCB Fabrication

Editor’s Note: This column is part of a series on a new university course in PCB manufacturing at Michigan Technological University. Marc will chronicle the progress of this class, interview the guest lecturers, introduce the students, etc. The interview with students was also edited for clarity.

In my first column, I reported on a grassroots effort being started to prepare the next generation of printed circuit board (PCB) “experts.” A fortunate alignment of academia, the industry, resources, and concerned, well-seasoned board geeks came together to pass on PCB experience to the next generation through a very practical design, build, assemble, and test opportunity at Michigan Technological University (MTU). I also shared the thoughts of a few of the many people that were key players in getting this effort started.

As a reminder, “EE4800: Printed Circuit Board Fabrication” is a hands-on class intended to give engineering undergraduate students an introduction to the basics of printed circuit design, fabrication, and assembly, which started on January 14 of this year. A high-level overview of the course, it’s approach, and goals can be seen in the poster shared at several events at IPC APEX EXPO 2019 in San Diego, California (Figure 1).

Cameron Philo Wins Best Technology Venture at 2019 CMU Competition

Published April 16, 2019

By Sue Hill

Five student teams from Michigan Technological University traveled to Central Michigan University (CMU) in Mount Pleasant, MI to compete in the ninth annual New Venture Competition held Friday, April 12, 2019.

Cameron Philo won Best Technology Venture for Life Pro Jackets and was awarded $10,000. Philo participated in Michigan Tech’s I-Corps Site Program last Fall. I-Corps is a team-based program structure that was developed through a partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

ECE Texting Campaign a Success

Published March 27, 2019

By Sue Hill

Students at computers — Photo by Glen Archer.

The first Electrical and Computer Engineering department texting campaign was held on March 26, 2019. The texting campaign is similar to the calling campaign the department put on earlier in the semester; however, students were able to send in questions via text.

Five current Tech students held conversations with approximately thirty students who had been accepted to Michigan Tech, answering questions all across the board.

The event was a success, and our students had a great time answering questions and discussing their experiences as a Husky—which can clearly be seen by the smiles.

By Kelsey Robinson, EE senior.

Heart Rate Monitor for Engineers Week 2019

Published March 5, 2019

By Sue Hill

Heart Rate Monitor group — Students working on soldering, with Blue Marble Security members assisting with questions.

Engineers’ Week this year took place February 17 – 23, 2019. Michigan Technological University’s nationally recognized engineering honor society, Tau Beta Pi (TBP), partnered with Blue Marble Security Enterprise to participate in a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) Event. The event was held on Friday, February 22, where approximately 15 TBP members learned the basics of soldering.

The TBP members had various levels of soldering knowledge, some being beginners and others having plenty of experience. They represented various majors while participating. The Blue Marble Security outreach team supervised for those with little experience and answered questions.

The HRM is a basic circuit used to teach students how to read color bands on resistors. The colors correspond to the resistor ohm value and polarity regarding the device LEDs. Besides basic component knowledge, the students learned the correct and safe process of through hole soldering. Upon the completion of populating and soldering the components in place, students were given an integrated circuit and nine volt battery to check the operation of the board. The TBP members took their completed heart rate monitor boards home as souvenirs of their soldering experiences and of Engineers’ Week 2019.

Society of Women Engineers Learn to Solder Heart Rate Monitors

Better to Light a Candle: Chapter One

Published January 10, 2019

By Sue Hill

Michigan Tech’s new course in printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing is the topic of a series of columns in I-Connect 007. The first column “Better to Light a Candle” Chapter One—Prepping the Next Generation,” by Marc Carter, features an interview with Christopher Middlebrook (ECE).

Better to Light a Candle: Chapter One—Prepping the Next Generation

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of columns on a new university course in PCB manufacturing at Michigan Technological University. Marc will chronicle the progress of this class, interview the guest lecturers, introduce the students, etc.

There has been a considerable amount of (electronic) ink and words shared in our industry bemoaning the graying-out of our industry and the growing shortage of skilled people at all levels. (See the May 2017 PCB007 Magazine column “Help Wanted—and How!” for just one example). As is usually the case, though, when all is said and done, more has been said than done.

That is why it was so refreshing to learn of someone who has decided to do something about it. Enter Dr. Christopher Middlebrook, a professor at Michigan Technological University (MTU) in Houghton, Michigan. On January 14, 2019, he will open the first session of “EE4800: Printed Circuit Board Fabrication”—a hands-on engineering class intended to give undergraduate students an introduction to the basics of printed circuit design, fabrication, and assembly.

In subsequent columns, Carter will chronicle the progress of the class, interview guest lecturers and talk to students. In addition to photos of Michigan Tech’s equipment suite for the new course, Carter interviewed instructor Chris Middlebrook (ECE). In the interview section of the column, Middlebrook tells Carter he is amazed by the response and guidance from industry in launching the new course.

I-Connect007 is a extensive global source for news and original content serving the printed circuit design, fabrication and assembly/EMS market.

Altium Sponsors Use of Software for PCB Design Class

Michigan Tech has entered into an agreement with Altium for the use of software in a classroom setting. The 12-month arrangement allows the University the use of Altium Designer software used to design printed circuit boards (PCBs).

The software will be primarily used in EE4800, Printed Circuit Board Fabrication, taught by Christopher Middlebrook (ECE). The agreement includes 20 licenses to the latest version of the Altium Designer software, as well as free updates and upgrades.

Middlebrook says he is pleased with the agreement, valued at $116,850. “Using Altium will allow students to have first-hand experience and exposure with a globally recognized software design package,” he said.

EE4800 is a hands-on undergraduate engineering class that teaches students the basics of printed circuit design, fabrication and assembly. This is a new course with its first offering in Spring of 2019. The class is the subject of what is expected to be a series of columns in I-Connect007.

Altium is a multinational software corporation headquartered in San Diego that focuses on electronics design systems for 3D PCB design and embedded system development.

By Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Category: Undergraduate Students

Developing Disruptive and Transformational Solutions

27th Annual Student Leadership Awards

Better to Light a Candle: Chapter Two—Introduction to PCB Fabrication

Better to Light a Candle: Chapter One—Prepping the Next Generation

Altium Sponsors Use of Software for PCB Design Class