Hundreds of people from all over the engineering world gathered at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ EFest West this past weekend at the Pomona Fairplex.
The festival gave students the opportunity to network with other students and professionals in the engineering world and to showcase their projects.
“It’s an opportunity for every engineering student and early career engineer to have experience with the tools and gain confidence in solving the complex challenges the world is facing today,” said ASME representative Karen Ohland.
This is the second annual EFest West as Las Vegas hosted last year.
This year, Pomona hosted the festival thanks in part to the CPP engineering program and the student volunteers from CPP’s ASME chapter.
Students traveled from various locations including Washington and Mexico.
The three-day festival featured multiple events such as the human powered vehicle competition and the student design competition.
Introductions and opening ceremonies took place on day one.
Teams competing in human powered vehicle competition arrived early to present their projects and for safety inspections.
Attendees visited different seminars from student leadership training to a geometric based topological optimization and analysis session.
Companies such as Boeing, Space X and GrabCAD attended the event.
Representatives presented different aspects of their companies to attendees and answered questions about their company.
Day one concluded with live music and food, but the excitement of festival transferred into day two.
The second day started early with the human powered vehicle competition drag race heats and the student design competition preliminary rounds.
CPP students tested their vehicle, Spirit of Dan, in the drag race.
“We felt very prepared. We had fast riders and a vehicle that we knew would be fast, reliable, and efficient,” said CPP human powered vehicle competition member Calvin Iba.
The name of their vehicle comes from a tradition of naming it after someone who positively impacted the vehicle.
The student design competition featured a friendly competition of soccer involving 15 teams in separate 4-on-4 matches.
Teams tried to score with robots they built and programmed.
The atmosphere changed as soon as the competition started. Students screamed with excitement as their team scored making if feel like a real soccer game.
University of Nevada Las Vegas won the competition followed by Cal State University Northridge in second and Utah State University in third.
Keynote speakers from Disney presented during lunchtime.
Day two also included different seminars from career development to a 3D workshop.
The day wrapped up with the winners of the drag race and student design competition.
The Broncos placed 5th in the women’s drag race and third in the men’s.
The last day of EFest kicked off with the human powered vehicle competition endurance race.
With the same vehicles that competed in the drag races, students tested how well their vehicles handled twists and turns as well as a longer course.
The Broncos started off hot as they took the lead.
“Our strategy was to get the parcel pick ups and drop offs out of the way early so the fast riders could pound out fast laps uninterrupted,” said Iba.
As the third rider got on, CPP experienced a set back.
The frame cracked which threw the crank off balance.
The Broncos dropped to fifth place as the team tried to figure a solution.
They fixed the problem using a ratcheting tie strap to support the crank.
CPP came back in full forced and overtook some of the competitors.
However, the deficit proved to be to great and the Broncos ended in fourth.
The day concluded earlier than the other two with the announcement of the winners for the endurance race.
The next ASME event will be EFest East April 13-15 and will be hosted by Penn State.
“There are so many different engineering students for all over,” said fourth-year mechanical engineering student Isabel Gutierrez. “I wouldn’t have the opportunity to interact with these students if it wasn’t for EFest.”
Show Comments (0)