Penn State Engineering welcomes its new class of freshmen students this week. The Women in Engineering and Multicultural Engineering Programs kicked off the new semester yesterday with day-long orientation events for their new members.

New students in WEPO participated in ice breaking activities like building balloon towers, attending a picnic at Spring Creek Park and playing broomball in the Pegula Ice Arena.

WEP members enjoy the food and sunny skies at Spring Creek Park, despite heavy storms in the afternoon.

WEPO broomball quickly devolves into a line dance at Pegula Ice Arena.

Freshman at WEPO construct balloon towers at the Nittany Lion Inn.

MEPO took a slightly more serious approach to orientation with design project competitions in the Hammond Building. However, the MEPO members will get their chance at broomball tonight at Pegula.

MEPO students plan their project for the design competition.

MEPO leaders explain the challenge project. Students have to create a working design with only the materials provided to them in the classroom.

Orientation activities will continue through Friday afternoon.

Welcome to Penn State Engineering, Class of 2018!

#WelcomeBackPSU

As part of the Society of Women Engineers High School Stayover, students check out some of the majors and extracurricular activities Penn State offers during an involvement and majors fair in Kunkle Lounge. (Photo credit: Society of Women Engineers)

By Erin Miller

A scavenger hunt of the Penn State campus for the high school students isn’t complete without a photo with the Nittany Lion Shrine. (Photo credit: Society of Women Engineers)

Thursday, March 20, kicked off the 2014 High School Stayover organized by the Penn State Society of Women Engineers (SWE).

The two day event hosted 68 accepted female students to experience college life from the perspective of a current female engineering student.

Going to class, eating in the commons and many other events were scheduled for the participants to attend.

On Friday evening, SWE jointly hosted a send-off dinner with the Women in Engineering Program for both participants and parents.  At the dinner participants and parents learned about programs like the Women in Engineering Program Orientation (WEPO), on-campus special living options and how to get the most out of college classes and clubs.

Networking with current students and peers provided participants with the opportunity to make connections throughout and after the program ended.

Penn State SWE organizes the stayover program each year to encourage high school women to pursue an engineering field and to attend Penn State.

At a dinner, students and their parents learned about the opportunities at Penn State, including orientation, special living options and how to get the most out of college classes and clubs. (Photo credit: Society of Women Engineers)

The program highlights areas such as class schedules, different engineering majors and involvement opportunities at Penn State and within the College of Engineering.

The stayover would not be possible without the generosity of SWE’s corporate sponsors and the hard work and enthusiasm of all of SWE’s volunteers, and faculty advisers.

Erin Miller is a fifth-year architectural engineering student from Collegeville, Pa., and an active member of SWE, WEPO, the Engineering Orientation Network and the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society.

Girls from two area middle schools teamed with Penn State engineering students to program robotic dance routines as part of their field trip to campus. One project had a Blue Band theme with a robotic drum major. (Photo credit: Curtis Chan)

Two dozen girls from two area middle schools got some first-hand exposure to engineering at the “Engineer Your Future” field trip event today (Nov. 21) on campus.

The girls, from Philipsburg-Osceola Junior High School and Park Forest Middle School, spent the day at the College of Engineering.

The event, hosted by the Women in Engineering Program (WEP), provides the girls with hands-on engineering activities and the opportunity to work with current Penn State engineering students.

The field trip included collaborating with first-year students from ME 102 LEGO Robotics to program robots with a choreographed dance routine, a tour of the Department of Architectural Engineering’s Immersive Construction Laboratory, a pizza lunch with engineering students, a presentation by the Engineering Ambassadors and an amusement park design project.

Cheryl Knobloch, WEP director and coordinator of the program, said the field trips is meant to encourage 7th and 8th grade girls to consider pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Middle school girls helped to program “dance moves” for robots designed and built by Penn State engineering students. Music from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” accompanied this particular robot’s moves.

A Godzilla-inspired robot and a lovesick mechanical mouse were among the highlights for two dozen middle school girls visiting Penn State’s College of Engineering on Thursday.

The trip, part of the Women in Engineering Program Outreach Workshop, gave the students a glimpse into what it’s like to be an engineer. The annual event is designed to encourage young girls to consider career opportunities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The Gozilla robot gets a helping hand from a student as she steers her creation to knock down a series of buildings during its dance.

Seventh-graders from Philisburg-Osceola Junior High School, eighth-graders from the Grier School and eighth-graders from Park Forest Middle School spent an entire day meeting Penn State engineering students, touring laboratories and working on hands-on projects.

The middle schoolers kicked off the day by teaming with students in the first-year robotics seminar ME 102. Working with undergraduate students, the middle school girls helped to program robots built by the engineers for a robotic “dance off.”

Constructed of Lego Mindstorms NXT robotics kits, the machines’ movements were choreographed with music and in some cases customized to look like a character, such as Godzilla, a mouse or a fish.

During their visit, the students toured the architectural engineering department’s Immersive Construction Laboratory, enjoyed a presentation by the Engineering Ambassadors, took in a pizza lunch with engineering students and designed their own amusement park ride.