Engineers Destroy Eggs, Castles and Bridges

Popsicle sticks, duct tape, rockets and eggs. The 35th annual Engineering Week, presented by the Engineering Student Council (ESC), promoted interaction and communication among engineering students, faculty, alumni and various community members. Held at the Engineering Gateway Plaza, the five-day national celebration included stiff competition, prizes and massive amounts of free food.
The Engineering Student Council of UCI is an umbrella group for the support and management of the various engineering organizations and clubs. The ESC functions as a liaison between students of the School of Engineering and the engineering world.
Tuesday morning kicked off E-Week with the Dean’s Breakfast and a welcome from Nicolaos G. Alexopoulos, the dean of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering. After breakfast, competitions began with the Popsicle-Stick Bridge, which pitted student-built bridges against each other to see which bridge could hold the most weight. Winners of the competition received cash prizes or gift certificates to the student store. Other events included 1-foot-by-1-foot catapults competing for maximum launching distance, a photo scavenger hunt and ‘Anatomy Airigami,’ a balloon-created anatomy model competition.
Wednesday’s main event, the EngiTECH Career Fair, took place in the Computer Science Plaza and featured over 50 company booths for engineering students to peruse.
Andy Verdin, the vice president of internal affairs for the Engineering Student Council and a fourth-year mechanical and civil engineering major, was the primary planner of E-Week and felt that it was a considerable improvement over the previous year’s event.
‘Last year, there were too many companies