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Super light, super aerodynamic, supermileage
BETTER THAN THE BATMOBILE: With many
of its members graduating this year, the Supermileage Vehicle
Team is looking for students to work on Cal's sleekest, lightest,
and most fuel-efficient car. The team is in the top five in the
country and is currently building the vehicle it will race in
Michigan this June. Team members include (from left), ME/history
junior Sarah Scott, CEE junior Jason Herberg, ME senior Ben Ku,
ME/applied math senior Kevin Ciocia, ME senior Patrick Fink, and
integrated biology junior Kevin Fang. "You learn to machine, learn
about composites and get some hands-on experience," says
Scott. "It actually makes class easier, too, because you know
what the heck is going on and why certain things matter." For
more info, go to http://smv.berkeley.edu/.
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Last spring you elected
them. Now, almost a year later, what have they done for you? ME junior
Chris Abad, MSE sophomore Peter Chung, and ME sophomore Igor Tregub
are your distinguished ASUC senators. Their job is to represent engineering
students in the ASUC senate as it considers everything from official
student bills to how to spend your student fees. For the first time
in years, three engineers have been elected to the ASUC senate, giving
the college a weightier say in student matters. This past week, Engineering
News sat down with each of the senators in Eshleman Hall to find out
what they've been working on.
Chris Abad
In the fall, we met with engineering student societies for an "ASUC
Resource Session" to show them everything from how to advertise with
fliers to how to get funding. I've also helped out with the ASUC website
to make it more interactive. But one of the main things I'm working
on is getting northside
businesses to stay open later than...[FULL
STORY]
In his old life, MSE Ph.D.
student Matt Sherburne carried a gun. As a deputy sheriff for Sacramento
County, he not only packed a Sig Sauer 45, but chased people over fences,
busted drug dealers, and ran a surveillance unit. He pulled bodies out
of wrecked cars and helped women leave abusive homes. But in his 13
years at the sheriff's department, he never touched a donut, he says
laughing.
Over the last seven years, Sherburne has transformed himself from deputy
sheriff to Berkeley engineer. He now works on mechanical properties
of metals and expects to finish his doctorate next May. It's an uncommon
journey that Sherburne credits to allowing himself to go where the wind
blows. "My whole life is just a string of random incidents," he says.
The random incident that brought...[FULL
STORY]
Wireless is everywhere around
campus. Over 70 AirBears hot zones make it possible for laptops to connect
to networks. PDAs and Blackberries keep us organized. Cell phones permeate
every nook and cranny. We use wireless all the time, but most students
don't think about how it works. Six seniors are.
Last fall, EECS assistant professor Ali Niknejad introduced a new lab
for EE142 that gave undergraduates their first-ever opportunity to learn
wireless hands-on. EECS majors Chen Chen, James Kao, Cheralin Peng,
Po-Kai Chen and Robert Hennessy and economics major Kevin Jones have
been figuring out how wireless works by building their own high-frequency
circuit boards. By the end of this semester, they will join these boards
together to make a complete 900 MHz front-end radio.
So far, the lab is successful. "It's been a great opportunity for students
to apply theory and do more than just computer simulations," says Niknejad.
Student James Kao compares it to taking apart a cell phone to see how
it works...[FULL
STORY]
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