Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College Electronic Engineering Technology students Marcus Hilliard and Derek Martin traveled to Washington, D.C., Oct. 23-25 to participate in the 2017 ATE Principal Investigators Conference, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the American Association of Community Colleges.
This is the third time OCtech students have been invited to present at the conference.
This year’s theme was “Hands-on, Minds-on: Pathways to a Highly Skilled U.S. Workforce.”
Hilliard and Martin helped collect temperature data on campus during the total solar eclipse in August. LabVIEW software and data acquisition hardware were used for the project, which was funded through the NSF Advanced Technological Education Program (NSF/ATE award number 1501828).
Several OCtech faculty and staff members also presented the college’s ATE Robotics and Automated Manufacturing Program, which is designed to increase awareness of opportunities in STEM for women and underrepresented minorities through programs-old-old-old-old in robotics and automated manufacturing. Dean of Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing Technology Richard Murphy, NSF Grant Program Director Jim Payne, Grant Writer/Special Projects Director Linda Payne, Engineering Design Technology Instructor Stephanie Thompson and Mechatronics Instructor Jerry Zissett represented OCtech at the conference.
