News
Mechanical Engineering Technology BS

Four multidisciplinary student teams got the opportunity to pitch their business ideas to potential investors at the RIT Student Accelerator Investor Demo Night earlier this month, each one hoping to jumpstart its ventures and transform its commercial concepts into real companies.

Undergraduate students from RIT ROC-ed the Project during a local project management competition to increase awareness and volunteer services for Rochester’s M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence. Their solution, “The Common Source,” took top honors recently in the annual ROC the Project competition, a regional challenge for college students.

For the last several decades, volunteer groups have played a pivotal role in keeping RIT’s curriculum relevant and current with the latest industry trends. The groups of 10 to 30 leaders from a wide variety of companies come together a few times a year to offer their insights for RIT faculty and staff in nearly every college.

Brian Jaworski ’18 (manufacturing and mechanical systems integration) and Kevin Matthews ’16 (electrical engineering technology) will discuss how “smart” robots are being used in industrial and manufacturing environments as part of Manufacturing Day 2019.

Electronics manufacturing is a trillion-dollar industry. driving the U.S. and local economies. RIT hosted a workshop this summer during which veterans, displaced workers and spouses of veterans gained cutting-edge skills—and career options—in the electronics industry.

When his brother’s horse died suddenly from colic in 2013, Michael Schab ’09 (computer engineering) saw an opportunity to create something that would prevent other equestrians from losing their beloved animals to this preventable affliction.

If the old saying, “couples who play together stay together” is true, Jon Podeszek ’10, ’12 MS and Danielle Furman Podeszek ’11 have it made. The two are ultramarathoners who spend their free time training to run 50-plus-mile races.

As part of a growing trend in enriching engineering education, RIT has approved a new course in soft skills for engineers. The one-credit elective course, originally piloted in the last academic year, has been approved as a credit-bearing option for students in RIT’s College of Engineering Technology and will begin in September.

The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor took first place overall at the 2019 Baja SAE Rochester challenge, an international student-design competition that challenges students to apply classroom knowledge with real-world applications. RIT placed 10th overall among 100 collegiate race teams that took on a daunting motor cross field and four challenging days of competition.

RIT Racing and teams from Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Canada, India and the United States will field race cars, built by student-engineers, and test them on a track that will challenge not only the durability of the cars but the problem-solving capabilities of the teams during the 2019 Baja SAE Rochester World Challenge June 6-9.

Samuel Lum found several things in common with his faculty mentor, Robert Osgood, including excitement about research and a project that could save lives. Lum’s background in mechanical engineering technology and Osgood’s microbiology expertise in studying biofilms would be the kind of multidisciplinary approach that could lead to identifying the genes most likely responsible for hospital-associated catheter infections.

Teams from universities in the United States as well as Canada, India, Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela will compete for the Mike Schmidt Iron Team Trophy, an award given to the overall season champion. More than 1,300 student-engineers, who designed and built off-road vehicles, are expected for the event that will consist of hill and rock climbs, acceleration and maneuverability challenges and a four-hour endurance race.