The UNC Charlotte community can help a group of creative civil engineering students build a concrete canoe, aid mechanical engineering students to rev up their race car and assist English students to attend a national convention next month as part of the spring 2019 crowdfunding campaigns. Crowdfund UNC Charlotte is an online platform that helps University faculty, staff and students fund unique projects.
UNC Charlotte civil engineering students are designing and building a concrete canoe to compete in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ national concrete canoe competition. The UNC Charlotte team will compete against local, national and international universities in two competitions: the regional Carolinas Competition, to be held April 4-6 at N.C. State University in Raleigh, and the national competition, to be held June 6-8 at the Florida Institute of Technology. In 2018, UNC Charlotte won the regional competition for the first time in 20 years. The team placed 15th overall in the national competition and won the Spirit of the Competition Award.
The team’s crowdfunding campaign goal is $2,500, which will pay for construction materials such as concrete and wood, travel and other expenses.
The UNC Charlotte Baja SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) team builds a car every year. This semester, the team is improving its car’s suspension system by implementing a data acquisition system to record values from shock pressure sensors, accelerometers and GPS loggers. The team’s $5,000 crowdfunding venture will help pay for the improvement work on the car as well as purchase safety gear such as fire suits and helmets.
Members of Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society, will host a roundtable discussion at the 2019 National Sigma Tau Delta Convention, which is being held in St. Louis, Missouri, in March. The discussion, entitled “Under Preparing Our K-12 Students,” will highlight education statistics from North Carolina and around the country. Sigma Tau Delta is trying to raise $3,000 to cover the cost of registration, travel and accommodations for 10 students.