Through social dinners and the use of chemical reactions to self-propel miniature cars, chemical engineering students from all over the southeast “bonded” at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Southern Regional Conference.
Twenty-five schools attended from the southeast region of the country and Puerto Rico. Thirty-five LSU students took a nine-hour bus ride to Atlanta Saturday to Georgia Tech, the site of the conference.
Although the schools had opportunities to meet others of the same field of interest, students competed in individual and team competitions for awards.
Chemical engineering senior Jill Fitzgerald presented research she did last summer in the AIChE paper competition. Fitzgerald’s presentation documented her research for a microfluidic device used in pharmaceutical research. Fitzgerald gave a 10-minute presentation and answered questions from judges.
“I’m going to grad school, so any experience with professional speaking is valuable,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald said that meeting judges who were representatives from different companies helped her make important contacts for future jobs.
Chemical engineering senior Carey O’Quin said LSU did not participate in the car competition, in which schools built small cars to run on chemical reactions to propel the cars. O’Quin said the cars, which are “about the size of a box of computer paper,” could not have any liquid emissions and had to be self-contained. The car that went the longest distance won the contest. Teams gave 15-minute presentations with posters to illustrate the chemical reactions and propulsion system used in the cars.
Students had many opportunities to visit companies and meet with people who could possibly help them find a job in the future, said chemical engineering sophomore Ryan Johnson.
Students went on plant tours to several factories, including Milliken, a rug production factory, Anheiser Bush, a beer producer, and Kimberly-Clark, a company that uses polymers to make gowns for doctors.
“Going to Kimberly-Clark gave me an insight as to what chemical engineers deal with day by day,” Johnson said. “The chemical engineer there monitored the processes of making the product and testing the fabric.”
Johnson said that at Kimberly-Clark, if the fabric has the desired quantity of the polymer, it is sent to be manufactured into the gowns. If not, the engineer must recalibrate the system so that it correctly produces the desired product.
Although LSU did not win any individual or team awards, the competitive environment gave students a look at how other programs and students at other schools succeed.
“There are advantages of the competition-type environment,”said chemical engineering senior Josh Fontenot, the student chapter president of AIChE at LSU. “You learn what’s going on in departments at other universities and meet with students from other regional schools. Everybody does things different, and we get the chance to see where other schools specialize in different areas and what else is out there.”
The LSU and Tulane branches of AIChE will co-host the 2005 Southern Regional Conference in New Orleans. Fontenot said the conference will have the annual car and paper competitions, and different types of professional development workshops.