Student members of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, or SHPE, will spend the day Feb. 6 promoting to about 220 middle and high school students the advantages of staying in school and pursuing an engineering education or career.

Student clubs show middle and high school students their projects at the 2013 ALE-YLF outreach event.

The organizers of the event, which combines two SHPE programs -- Advancement of Latinos in Engineering and the Young Latina Forum -- describe it as a day of motivation and inspiration that emphasizes the importance of higher education and future involvement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, aka the STEM subjects.

“Through a career fair, STEM workshops, and professional panel, these events help high school students become passionate about engineering, math and science,” said Mario Muñoz, SHPE-UA executive vice president. “Our goal is to introduce them to STEM and remind them that anyone can succeed in the STEM fields if they are willing to work hard.”

The event, which is sponsored by IBM and Raytheon Missile Systems, begins at 7 a.m. in the student union ballroom with a career fair followed by an opening ceremony featuring keynote talks by Erica Corral, a professor in materials science and engineering, and James Valenzuela, Raytheon engineer and club mentor. Both speakers will talk about their own personal struggles to get where they are today and encourage the students to reach their full potential.

SHPE will also be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Young Latina Forum by creating a time capsule for future SHPE members. The UA student chapter of SHPE is the only chapter nationally to organize the Young Latina Forum.

“Students will be able to write something to put in the time capsule, and we will include pictures from this year’s and past years’ events,” said Gabriela Brambila, SHPE-UA vice president for the Young Latina Forum. Brambila said the society has invited past vice presidents to include letters of advice in the capsule for future SHPE vice presidents.

Following the opening ceremony, students will take part in workshops that illustrate just a few of the many applications of engineering. “This year we are incorporating something completely new by partnering with several other College of Engineering student clubs, which have volunteered to help us with workshops,” Brambila said.

SHPE is hosting workshops that will teach would-be engineers how to build a loudspeaker using a paper plate, how to make a black-light LED system for reading invisible ink, and how to design a water purification system. The UA Rube Goldberg Team, plus students clubs from civil engineering, biomedical engineering, materials science and engineering, and chemical engineering will be hosting different workshops related to their respective engineering fields.

Lunch might be something of a novelty for many of the high school and middle school students. “We want to give the event a more professional feel and really want the students to have a memorable experience,” Brambila explained. During a professional business lunch, school students will share their tables, and conversation, with engineering undergraduates and professionals, after which a panel of College faculty and Raytheon engineers will answer further questions on life as an engineer.

College of Engineering Dean Jeff Goldberg will close the day by highlighting some of the opportunities the young students might enjoy as engineers, stressing that engineers help people and improve the quality of life by designing engineering solutions to societal problems.

“Overall, this year will be full of new and exciting things that have not been done in past SHPE events,” Brambila said. “We are incredibly excited.”

At a Glance

• Who: Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, UA Student Chapter
• What: Advancement of Latinos in Engineering/Young Latina Forum
• When: Thursday, February 6, 2014, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Where: Student Union Memorial Center Ballroom

Contacts

Gabriela Brambila
SHPE vice president for Young Latina Forum
520.668.1928
gbrambila@email.arizona.edu

Rafael Haro
SHPE vice president for Advancement of Latinos in Engineering
rharo06@email.arizona.edu­

Links

SHPE website:
http://www.shpeua.org/aleylf.html

ALE-YLF event page:
http://gbrambil1.wix.com/gbrambila