Off-Road Illini share engineering with local youth
3/15/2021 Maddie Yang
On a recent campus-wide non-instructional day, the Off-Road Illini Baja SAE team organized a virtual event with the Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club, a local after-school group.
Written by Maddie Yang
On a recent campus-wide non-instructional day, the Off-Road Illini Baja SAE team organized a virtual event with the Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club (DMBGC), a local after-school group. Ten undergrads from the Off-Road Illini who covered a variety of majors and concentrations spoke with high-school students about what engineering is, what it’s like to study it in college, and the different disciplines within engineering. Students were able to ask questions and talk about their specific interests with college students in the fields they were interested in.
The DMBGC works to provide students in the community with opportunities they might otherwise not have. They run many programs to help students be successful academically as well as strong citizens and members of the community.
The event was the first of three that the Off-Road Illini have planned with DMBGC. The next one is planned for later this month, where they will be covering mechanical design and the process of designing and building an off-road vehicle. The third is tentatively planned as an in-person event where the students can see the team’s car and learn automotive engineering principles.
Katie Peters and Maddie Yang, from Off-Road Illini, expressed their gratitude for the volunteers for working hard to make the event meaningful.