CIVS Student Worker, Luis Raygadas represented CIVS during the visit from Gavit Middle School. It was held at CIVS Vis Lab at 12:30 on Monday February 24th. Luis presented several in house software demos to the group of 8th graders and explained the purposes of Virtual Reality development. The reason for the learning experience was to demonstrate Virtual Reality to young students and to potentially inspire them to look into the tech world.
The Girl (Em)Powered Summit exceeded all imagination today! The panel of 15 highly successful, diverse, career women took Portage high school’s new Learning Center by storm, and shared their expertise and experience with 42 energetic young ladies from grades 4 through 12. The day began with a “meet and greet”, formal introductions, a Keynote address by the PTS Superintendent, and a video of the recent, historic, all-women spacewalk. Next, was speed networking, career sharing, and activity stations with the highly successful women guests. The young ladies got minds and hand on, engaging and connecting with the presenters. After several rotations, the large group enjoyed a break for some great food and conversation.
After lunch, the Panel discussion got real! Moderated by the She Can Tech women’s STEM group, heartfelt and tough questions by the young ladies were openly discussed by the panel. Their experiences, insights, and advice captivated the room leaving the kids inspired and empowered to pursue their passions. The lives of the presenters and students alike were positively impacted, and perhaps changed today. The event was co-hosted by Portage Robotics, the Porta-Botz! and She Can Tech, and made possible by a contingent generous student and parent volunteers. The Summit experience was the only one of its kind for northwest Indiana. It is the mission of Portage Robotics to engage the community at multiple levels, actively promote STEM, and to pursue and involve traditionally under-represented populations in the STEM ields.
The Steel Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Consortium will be holding its largest ever annual meeting at PNW’s CIVS facilities on November 13th and 14th . The consortium has expanded in 2019 to a record 16 members, bringing together professionals and experts in iron and steel manufacturing from around the world to pool their knowledge and provide guidance to student researchers working to improve process efficiency, safety, and more throughout the industry. New consortium members will attend the meeting alongside longtime contributors to review ongoing research projects in areas throughout the iron and steel manufacturing process, introduce their companies, and contribute their feedback and direction to the ongoing cutting-edge research taking place in the SMSVC.
