Engineers duct-taped their friends to walls, stuffed themselves into a car and competed in a charity “Penny War” last week as part of the
university’s first-ever celebration of National Engineers Week. Ten different organizations participated in the student-run interdepartmental event. “Engineering Week is a national week that’s celebrated both in universities and in industries, and it’s about celebrating engineering doing different activities,” said Matt Van Lieshout, a graduate student in mechanical engineering who had the idea for and organized the week on the Hill. Tufts’ “E-Week” consisted of 11 events, located primarily in Anderson Hall and hosted by different engineering organizations on campus. Events ranged from dodgeball to ice cream-making to a poker tournament. Each organization received points for their events, for their participation and for their performance in each competition. Teams included civil engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, chemical engineers, members of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), members of Nerd Girls and members of Engineers Without Borders. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) ranked in first and second place, respectively, but the scores were not yet finalized as of last night. The team with the most cumulative points will receive a trophy. Van Lieshout participated in a similar engineering competition during his undergraduate years at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He developed Tufts’ version in part to bring together the different engineering departments at Tufts, which he said are typically isolated from one another.
“My goals at the beginning were to try to do something fun, to try to get engineering some recognition, and to try to get the engineering groups to try to interact with each other in a social, fun way,” Van Lieshout said.