The IEEE Student Branch of the University of Kentucky recently traveled to Nashville, TN to participate in the annual IEEE Region 3 conference, SoutheastCon. Seventeen students from ECE and CS, from freshman to graduate student level, participated in the Software, Hardware, Ethics, Student Paper, Website, and T-Shirt competitions.

The hardware competition challenged teams to build an autonomous robot which could seek victims of a natural disaster and report their location and life status. A total of 35 teams participated in the competition. The UK IEEE Student Branch team made it into the semifinals, finishing in fourth place.

The Ethics team was assigned an ethically questionable scenario where they were to present and defend their stance while applying the IEEE Code of Ethics. The team, consisting of Bonnie Cheng (EE), Cassandra Cox (EE), and Matthew Jackson (EE), earned second place out of 12 teams.

The T-Shirt competition required schools to design a unique, team shirt for the conference. The T-Shirt, designed by Bonnie Cheng (EE), won first place.