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Sun shines for the start of Engineering Week
SERVICE WITH A SMILE:
MSE/ME senior Jui-Shan Grace Hsu prepares burger fixings
for hungry engineers during Pi Tau Sigma’s barbeque
on Tuesday, April 18. Students happily ate burgers and veggie
burgers in the sun after weeks of endless rain. The event
was part of Engineering Week, the weeklong celebration for
engineering students organized by the Engineers’ Joint
Council. Other activities included broomball, poker, capture
the flag and Ultimate Frisbee. (Rachel Shafer photo)
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When Leslie Robertson (B.S.’52 CE) was awarded the contract
to structurally design and build the 110-floor World Trade Center towers,
he was 32 years old. His tallest building up that point was 22 floors.
To fill the gap in his experience, Robertson did what any good student
does: He studied.
“I looked at the work of older engineers who had built all these
60-floor buildings around New York,” he says. “I read what
they wrote. I went through their buildings. I got on top of elevator
cars
and rode up and down to see how the guts worked. I sorted out what
was good and what was bad.” When the towers were dedicated in
April 1973, they were the tallest buildings in the world. Just before
they collapsed on September 11, 2001, they had absorbed the impact
of Boeing 767s traveling at an estimated 400 m.p.h. and subsequent
fires as hot as 2,000-degrees Fahrenheit. The towers lasted long enough
to allow about 90 percent of their occupants to escape. [FULL STORY]
CEE professor Robert Bea calls his senior capstone class “CEE 180:
Construction, Maintenance, and Design of Civil and Environmental Engineered
Systems,” but it might as well be “Welcome to the Real World.” Teams
of students work to solve contemporary Bay Area problems and deliver a polished
project within 15 weeks. A consultant who won’t call you back? Indifferent
government officials? Project bigger than you realized? In this class, students
learn to execute projects outside the controlled world of academia.
Take CEE senior Siu-Ting Mak. His team’s original project was investigating
the redevelopment of Treasure Island. But three weeks into the semester,
the team discovered that it was too much to handle in 15 weeks. So Mak
and CEE
seniors Luyin Zhu and Lilian Leung dumped all their research for a new
project: the susceptibility of the Sacramento River levee system in a
large earthquake. With time already lost, the three scrambled to learn the
100-year
history of the levees, built of clean sand by farmers to protect their
land against flooding. Now, the structures, which protect million-dollar river
homes as well as farmland, are aging, weak and sinking. The three students,
advised by CEE professor and levee expert Ray Seed and other experienced
consultants,
walked a portion of the levees in February to see the situation firsthand.
Then they used data from the United States Geological Survey to complete
a preliminary analysis. [FULL STORY]
The levees along the Sacramento River aren’t the only ones in
trouble. CEE seniors Sara Garrett and Bryan Jaworski and junior Mei
Chee Teoh are investigating levees near Novato for CEE professor Robert
Bea’s capstone class “CEE 180: Construction, Maintenance,
and Design of Civil and Environmental Engineered Systems.” In
Bea’s class, teams of students work to solve contemporary Bay
Area problems and deliver a polished project within a 15-week semester.
Garrett, Jaworski and Teoh are concentrating on the levees that sit
on the former Hamilton Army Airfield, which is being converted to a
wetland. Its soft bay mud is perfect for shoreline habitat but wreaks
havoc on the old, earthen levees, which protect nearby homes and farmland
from flooding. The levees, in short, are sinking. The Army Corps of
Engineers, which oversees levee maintenance, has solved this problem
by building them ever higher. But Garrett, Jaworski and Teoh think
they have a better idea: a new low-cost, low-maintenance design that
won’t sink as much and will still meet FEMA insurance requirements. [FULL STORY]
Dwight Asuncion, IEOR sophomore
Running for: Senator
Qualifications: Director of Student Group Support in the
ASUC Office of the Vice President; member IIE, EJC, ASCE and ESW student
societies
Goals: Extend northside restaurant hours at night, targeting
La Burrita, La Val’s and Bongo Burger; promote campus unity through collaboration
on different community events and shows; improve engineers’ knowledge
of ASUC resources.
Loves: Lakers games, cooking, God and church
Quote: “It’s all about personal relationships. I think
I can make a difference.”
Brandon Chen, BioE senior
Running for: Senator
Qualifications: Vice president of Sigma Mu Delta (premedical
fraternity), works as a producer for a club and party company, owns
SAT tutoring
business, Tau Beta Pi officer
Goals: Improve engineers’ exposure to industry by developing
a course-credit program where students are connected to industry research
opportunities, similar to the Undergraduate Research Program.
Loves: Piano, dancing, physiology
Quote: “I want to make Berkeley better and help people who are
unhappy with it.” [FULL STORY]
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