Over 170 participants, including freshmen, upperclass coaches, RCEL faculty/staff and other volunteers, crowded into the RMC Grand Hall for a day of challenges and fun. The competition designs were very creative this year, including catapults, canons and slingshots! Three student speakers focused on the Rice Engineering Three Ships: Austin James (Sr., MECH) spoke about Leadership, Emma Baker (Jr, MECH) spoke about internships, and Senthil Natarajan spoke about entrepreneurship. After dinner from the Breakfast Klub, Dean Ned Thomas came and closed out the event with a great call to action speech to get all the freshmen excited about the opportunities at Rice.
Design Challenge Winners
Patrick Brady, CS, Jones
Achal Srinivasan, MECH, Hanszen
Martin Ke, undecided, Martel
Victoria Joshi, MECH, Martel
Coach: Edward Gao, ChBE, Jones
Thank you Rice Engineering Alumni (REA) members Wendy Hoenig and Nik Kostov for volunteering as Pod Leaders during the event!
Congratulations to our door prize winner - this year's prize was an iPad Air.