On October the 27th, the IEEE Albuquerque Section hosted the IEEE Region 6 Southwest Area Spring Meeting at the University of New Mexico campus.

The objective of this meeting was for or Section Chairs and student branches to gather with Region 6 staff to discuss issues that relate to activities and needs, provide Student Branch officer training, network, share ideas, and provide a venue to collect needs and ideas to make their IEEE experience better than ever.

Here are links to some of the presentations:

Welcome by Kathleen Kramer, R6 director.

Region 6 Treasurer’s report by Scott Tamashiro.

VTools Update by Chris Gunning.

IEEE Educational Activities overview by Witold Kinsner.

Side by side comparison of the Section Vitality Dashboard and AO Analytics.

Albuquerque Section activities overview.

Summary of activities of the UNM Student Branch.

Here is also a picture of the attendees:

Overall, the meeting met its objectives. The Albuquerque section was happy to be the host for this meeting and is looking forward to participating in upcoming area meetings in 2019.

Thank you everyone for their participation.

Gilberto

Treasurer.

The Albuquerque Section of the IEEE meets on the last Tuesday of the month. The meeting is open to any Section member and it is free of charge for students. The meetings take place at Yanni’s on Central, at 11.30am, except for December, June, and July.

If you want to attend or have questions for the Section officers, please contact Gilberto (Treasurer) at g.zamora@ieee.org.

Here are the approved minutes for the September 2018 Section meeting.

Thank you,

Gilberto.

he Albuquerque Section of the IEEE meets on the last Tuesday of the month. The meeting is open to any Section member and it is free of charge for students. The meetings take place at Yanni’s on Central, at 11.30am, except for December, June, and July.

If you want to attend or have questions for the Section officers, please contact Gilberto (Treasurer) at g.zamora@ieee.org.

Here are the approved minutes for the August 2018 Section meeting.

Thank you,

Gilberto.

The Albuquerque Section of the IEEE meets on the last Tuesday of the month. The meeting is open to any Section member and it is free of charge for students. The meetings take place at Yanni’s on Central, at 11.30am, except for December, June, and July.

If you want to attend or have questions for the Section officers, please contact Gilberto (Treasurer) at g.zamora@ieee.org.

Here are the approved minutes for the April 2018 Section meeting.

Thank you,

Gilberto.

This year, the IEEE Albuquerque Section had another successful participation at the 2008 New Mexico Public Education Department’s STEM Symposium on June 1. Like in 2007, we put together a workshop to show teachers and students basic engineering principles while having fun. The workshop, titled “Breaking Chocolate” was presented by Turtle Haste, NBCT, MSED; Rebecca Kreitinger, Student Member IEEE; Zane Kominek, Student Member IEEE; and Hy Tran, Senior Member, IEEE.

IEEE’s Albuquerque Section provided financial support for this activity; the support helped provide 50 teachers with measurement tools that they can use in the classroom.

IEEE and Sigma Xi members also offered their names/contact information as possible mentors for teachers who want to test lesson plans from tryengineering.org.

You can download the handouts used for the “Breaking Chocolate” activity next:

• The PowerPoint presentation,
• A quick reference sheet of handy household items that can be used to calibrate size (dimension) and weight (mass)
• A flyer for tryengineering.org, with mentor names
• A simplified version of a quality function deployment tool that engineers use in decision making,
• Printable “uncalibrated” rulers
• Educator guide
• Student guide

Fifty teachers participated in the session (this was the room limit); and teachers participated in discovering the importance of standards in measurements; how to calibrate a measuring tool; and the design process to test the breaking strength of various types of chocolate.

The team has received feedback from the participants. All participants greatly enjoyed the activity, and will use this materials in their classes. Some participants would like to address lower grades (below 3^rd grade) in the activity, and some participants would like more structure in the activity in the balance between exploration and structure.

The team intends to participate again in 2019, should NM PED invite us to do so.

As always, the IEEE Albuquerque Section thanks all the presenters for their dedication to improve public education in our state.

See some of pictures of the workshop:

Each year the IEEE Albuquerque Section, in collaboration with the UNM Sigma Xi Chapter, recognizes the efforts of its membership to improve the organization and bring merit to our profession.

This year’s awards were presented at the annual joint IEEE – Sigma Xi banquet on Monday, May 14th.

Here’s the list of awardees along with pictures of the event.

Albuquerque Section Officers. From the left: Ray Byrne (Vice Chair), Hy Tran (Education activities chair), George Oltman (Life Member), Jason Neely (Chair), Lee Rashkin (Secretary), Gilberto Zamora (Treasurer)

Jason Neely, Section Chair, welcoming attendees

Amir R. Nafchi, 2018 Outstanding Graduate Student (UNM)

Rebecca Kreitinger, 2018 Superior Undergraduate Student (UNM)

Zack Daniels, 2018 Notable Achievement Award (UNM)

Matthew J. Reno, 2018 Outstanding Young Engineer (Sandia National Labs)

David Balata, recipient of the IEEE Albuquerque Section’s UNM Presidential Scholarship.

Emeritus Professor Harjit Alhuwalia (right) and the banquet speaker, astronaut Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt (Left)

Mike Jackovich and Dr. Schmitt

Astronaut Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt, presenting his talk “A Voyage to the Moon on Saturn’s Wings.”

Banquet attendees.

Congratulations to this year’s awardees. We look forward to recognizing a new batch of outstanding IEEE members in 2019.

Gilberto (Treasurer)

he Albuquerque Section of the IEEE meets on the last Tuesday of the month. The meeting is open to any Section member and it is free of charge for students. The meetings take place at Yanni’s on Central, at 11.30am, except for December, June, and July.

If you want to attend or have questions for the Section officers, please contact Gilberto (Treasurer) at g.zamora@ieee.org.

Here are the approved minutes for the March 2018 Section meeting.

Thank you,

Gilberto.

The Albuquerque Section of the IEEE meets on the last Tuesday of the month. The meeting is open to any Section member and it is free of charge for students. The meetings take place at Yanni’s on Central, at 11.30am, except for December, June, and July.

If you want to attend or have questions for the Section officers, please contact Gilberto (Treasurer) at g.zamora@ieee.org.

Here are the approved minutes for the February 2018 Section meeting.

Thank you,

Gilberto.

The UNM branch of IEEE sent 18 students to attend the annual IEEE Region 6 Rising Stars conference, held for three days in Las Vegas. This conference offers students an opportunity to network with other IEEE students and working professionals, plus presentation sessions to provide information about new trends within the electrical and computer engineering fields. There is also a session for resumes to be critiqued by the professionals in the field. The 2018 Rising Stars conference had presenters from companies such as Ford, Facebook, and Google. A total of 16 sessions were offered covering topics such as entrepreneurship, sustainability, finance, and tips for self improvement.

As part of the Rising Stars conference, Early Warning LLC hosted a cybersecurity capture the flag (CTF) competition. The CTF involves a series of challenges that acquaint participants with the tools available for checking for vulnerabilities in a system and familiarize them with common coding errors to fix. The UNM Branch of IEEE had 18 members compete against 40 other students in the challenges, receiving points for each completed task. UNM students Jonathan Daniels and Mike Chu scored the same number of points, receiving first and second place in the competition. “The competition was a lot of fun,” said Jonathan. “I’m excited we got to go and I hope we get to do more like that in the future. Congratulations to everyone who participated.”

Here is a link to pictures of the Rising Stars events.

The Albuquerque Section congratulates all the students who participated at this year’s Rising Stars conference and looks forward to help send more students next year. Funding for this year’s students who attended the conference was provided in part by UNM’s ECE department, IEEE PACE, and the Albuquerque Section.

Gilberto

2018 Section Treasurer.