The Tufts National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) on Feb. 17 won $1,500 from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)-USA in its fifth-annual online engineering video scholarship award competition for highlighting the creativity and problem-solving nature of engineering.
The competition required undergraduate engineering students to create a 90-second video for 11 to 13 year-olds about "How Engineers Make a World of Difference." Students from two other universities — the University of California at Berkeley and Ohio University — also won the $1,500 prize, according to the press release.
The Tufts video was recognized for "best content and message."
"Our main objective was to make the video as personal and relatable as possible," Kristen Ford, a senior, said. "What almost kept me from pursuing engineering is thinking that I was so unlike the people who become engineers. When I realized engineers come in all shapes and sizes with different talents and abilities, I said to myself, ‘hey, I can do that.'"
Although Tufts NSBE had never participated in the contest in the past, this year they decided to produce the video as a way of bonding with fellow members of the organization, according to Yorman Garcia, a senior.
"We wanted to spread the message of the possibilities in the field of engineering that are perhaps unknown to the younger generation," Garcia said. "We had the right group of people and the right idea to get it going this year."
NSBE — which counts 30,000 members across the country — was founded in 1975 to increase the number of black engineers in the country. The Tufts video was intended to demonstrate that engineers could be found across races and genders, according to Ford.
"Whenever I learned about engineers and scientists in school I learned about Caucasian males," Ford said. "This video was our way of giving back to people like me who could never see themselves being an engineer. I want to tell them that if they can believe it they can achieve it."
"We wanted kids to understand that anybody can be an engineer and there are many things that engineers are involved in," Garcia added.
The video — which is currently on display on the main NSBE website — features Tufts NSBE members sharing their career goals and motivations for becoming engineers.
"We want to increase the involvement, not just of minorities, but of other kids in engineering so they know there are kids that look just like them that are doing something real in this field," Garcia said.
When the email announcing their win came two days earlier than expected, the hard work they did during the first week of the semester literally paid off, Chiamaka Chima, a sophomore, said.
"Since this was our first time doing this I did not think we would win, but that it would be good experience," Anecia Richards, a freshman, said. "When I heard that we won the competition I was very excited and surprised."
The winning videos — which are all available on YouTube — will also be seen by potential young engineers on the "Design Squad Nation" website.
With the money from the IEEE-USA competition, Tufts NSBE will be able to send more of its members to the national NSBE convention next month in Pittsburgh, Penn. In past years, only a few students from the organization could attend because of the expenses associated with the conference, Garcia said.
"These conventions are very necessary for our engineers," Chima said. "You can develop leadership skills and network with members of NSBE, so when we entered the competition we decided that if we won we would send more members, like freshmen, who didn't have the opportunity to go before."
