The College of Engineering this Saturday will be holding its 2nd annual Engineering Night at the Pyramid. Students, faculty, alumni, staff, and guests are invited to come cheer on the CSULB Men’s Basketball team as they take on University of California Irvine.
The game begins at 8 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN. A pre-game reception for alumni will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the Pyramid dance studio. For game tickets, visit www.longbeachstate.com/coe17. Alumni and faculty can RSVP to the game and reception at coe-dev@csulb.edu.
The College will also be marking its 60th anniversary with interactive displays. The anniversary will be celebrated throughout the year with historic photos posted on the College’s Facebook page
.
Another highlight of Engineering Night will be a Man vs. Machine half-time game featuring a catapult built by Chemical Engineering seniors Nathanael Dunham, Jonathon Garcia, and Josue Alonso, under the direction of Chemical Engineering Professor Ted Yu.
Dating back to the Middle Ages, catapults were used to storm castle walls—and hurl rocks, fireballs, and hot tar. This wooden catapult uses bunjee cords for tension. It will be throwing a basketball and taking on a former 49ers shooter in testing its hoop skills.
Dunham said when Dr. Yu suggested the project, “it sounded like fun.” However, as in the case of most engineering projects, turning the idea into reality was much more difficult.
The trio admit that being ChemE students put them at a disadvantage. “Building it was the tricky part because we don’t focus on physics in our major,” said Alonso, adding that they found plans for building a catapult on the Internet.
They worked on the catapult mostly over winter break, testing it in Dunham’s backyard. Another challenge was that none of the students had previously measured or cut wood. “It sounded easy but ended up being hard,” said Dunham.