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IEEE Student Chapter Places First at SoutheastCon

May 09, 2023

Recently, 16 students from the UK Engineering Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) student chapter traveled to Orlando, Florida, for IEEE’s SoutheastCon. 

Recently, 16 students from the UK Engineering Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) student chapter traveled to Orlando, Florida, for IEEE’s SoutheastCon, its annual IEEE Region 3 technical, professional, and student conference.

The students participated as a volunteer team for the main hardware competition, a senior design team for the open hardware competition, a circuit competition team, an ethics competition team and in the promotional t-shirt competition. Many students also participated in the networking competition and all past and present officers from the UK chapter participated in a leadership training.

The UK team returned with wins in the following categories:

  • First place in the main hardware competition (volunteer team)
  • Third place in the open hardware competition (senior design team)

Competition Summary:

Each student chapter in IEEE Region 3 can enter—at most—one robot. Those robots are considered for participation in the main hardware competition. Additional robots from the chapter, robots built by chapters outside the region, or by middle and high schoolers, professionals and others are allowed to compete in the open hardware category. 

The teams were tasked with cleaning up the imaginary amusement park “Duck Gardens” after being hit by a hurricane. On the playing field, the 12”x12”x12” maximum-sized robots needed to drive to two corners of the field to “feed” the manatees and alligators with playing chips in different colors and then they need to clean up statue pieces and ducks from the field. The final goal was to build up three statues and put ducks atop of each, in addition to putting seven ducks into a designated pond area.

A total of 30 teams competed in the hardware competitions. Teams from both the main and open competitions participate in the first three rounds equally. Points from these rounds were added up to a total score for ranking. After the first three rounds, the volunteer team competing in the main competition went into a final round of eight. The volunteer team scored high enough to compete in the final against Virginia Tech, where they walked away the winners! The open completion went into a final four, where our senior design team ended up ranking third out of the four teams in the final.

  • Third Place in the Circuit Competition

Competition Summary:

The circuits team was challenged by the imaginary company "GeoLatLong LTD" to develop a proof of concept to take a programmable logic controller output and translate it to their Global Radio system. The team had to develop a low-cost prototype that also had to visually display packet status. The radio signal had to also report temperature and humidity information. The team had to build a basic prototype and submit documentation of their design.

  • First Place in the Promotional Competition T-Shirt Category

Competition Summary:

Each student branch is allowed to enter up to 4 items in the competition. Each item must include the IEEE logo and the school name and/or “IEEE SoutheastCon 2023” incorporated into the design. The students must hold a virtual or in person product design review with a panel composed of at least three faculty/staff at their university or IEEE professional section members. Students are required to find the members for the panel and set up the review.

According to Regina Hannemann, faculty advisor for the UK IEEE student chapter, the first place win in the hardware category was a big one.

“To put this win in perspective: The Traveling Trophy of the SoutheastCon Hardware competition lists the winners back to 1981. Since then, this is the third time UK has brought home the first place. The last two times, our participating students were not even born yet (1989 and 1995),” Hannemann stated.   

 

Traveling Students:

Joshua Caudill CPE Graduating Senior

Official Hardware (Volunteer Team)

Leadership Training

 

Parker Feezor CPE/EE Graduating Senior

Official Hardware (Volunteer Team)

Leadership Training

 

Morgan Garrity CHE & EES Junior

Ethics

Networking 

Leadership Training

 

Dawson Messer CPE Junior

Official Hardware (Volunteer Team)

Networking

Leadership Training

 

Brandon Holt EE Senior

Official Hardware (Volunteer Team)

Leadership Training

 

Holden Hooper CPE Senior

Ethics

Circuit Design

 

Melissa Hannemann EE & Aero Freshman

Circuit Design

Promotional Design - T-shirt

Networking 

Officer Training

 

Brayden Reichelderfer EE Graduating Senior

Open Hardware


Sameer Mittal EE Graduating Senior

Open Hardware

 

Charlie Armstrong CPE Graduating Senior

Open Hardware

 

John Curtsinger CPE Graduating Senior

Open Hardware

 

Liam Murphy EE Freshman

Official Hardware (Volunteer Team)

Networking

Leadership Training


Nick Schuler EE Junior

Networking

Leadership Training

 

Cole Cuddy EE MS

Official Hardware Team - Graduate Mentor

Networking 

Leadership Training

 

Lauryn Gregory ME Freshman

Networking

Leadership Training

 

Hersch Nathan

Circuit Design

Networking

Leadership Training

 

Non-Traveling Students:

Ilya Segal CPE Senior

Official Hardware (Volunteer Team)

 

Ethan Shidler EE Sophomore

Official Hardware (Volunteer Team)