Engineers duct-taped their friends to walls, stuffed themselves into a car and competed in a charity "Penny War" last week as part of the university's first-ever celebration of National Engineers Week.
Ten different organizations participated in the student-run interdepartmental event.
"Engineering Week is a national week that's celebrated both in universities and in industries, and it's about celebrating engineering doing different activities," said Matt Van Lieshout, a graduate student in mechanical engineering who had the idea for and organized the week on the Hill.
Tufts' "E-Week" consisted of 11 events, located primarily in Anderson Hall and hosted by different engineering organizations on campus. Events ranged from dodgeball to ice cream-making to a poker tournament.
Each organization received points for their events, for their participation and for their performance in each competition. Teams included civil engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, chemical engineers, members of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), members of Nerd Girls and members of Engineers Without Borders.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) ranked in first and second place, respectively, but the scores were not yet finalized as of last night. The team with the most cumulative points will receive a trophy.
Van Lieshout participated in a similar engineering competition during his undergraduate years at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He developed Tufts' version in part to bring together the different engineering departments at Tufts, which he said are typically isolated from one another.
"My goals at the beginning were to try to do something fun, to try to get engineering some recognition, and to try to get the engineering groups to try to interact with each other in a social, fun way," Van Lieshout said.
In the weeklong "Penny War" contest, hosted by the ASME, each team earned points by adding pennies to their own jar and subtracted points from other teams by adding nickels, dimes and quarters to their opponents' jars.
On Thursday, teams competed in an NSBE-hosted event called "Stuck on You," sticking a member of their team to the wall using only duct tape.
It was "really successful" and attracted "upwards of 30 to 40 people," according to NSBE team captain Nicole Slaughter, a junior.
The taped individual had to remain on the wall unsupported for at least 30 seconds, and teams received points based on how high their member was off the ground and how little duct tape they used.
The ASCE won the competition, sticking their person "six or seven inches from the ceiling," Van Lieshout said.
The ASCE also hosted the "Clown Car" event on Thursday, during which teams attempted to cram the most people into a small Toyota Camry sedan owned by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. ASCE won that event, too, with 13 people stuffed in, according to ASCE team captain Patrick Barber, a junior.
About 40 to 50 people stopped by over the course of the event, according to Van Lieshout.
"A lot of groups participated in that event and you kind of got to see something you don't usually see," he said.
Because Van Lieshout came up with the idea of holding an engineering competition at Tufts only a few weeks before National Engineering Week, there was limited time to put his plan into action.
"I'm surprised in a positive way it actually went as well as it did, just because of the time constraint, and everybody just kind of jumped into this," Van Lieshout said.
Slaughter and American Institute of Chemical Engineers team captain Sterling Wall, a junior, said that they hope to expand Engineering Week next year through more publicity and advanced planning.
Both emphasized the desire to involve the entire Tufts community in next year's Engineering Week.
"The characteristic thing is there hasn't been a lot of interaction between the engineering school and the School of Arts and Sciences," Wall said.
