VT-ENGAGE
ROXIE
Real Outreach eXperiences In Engineering
Read the 04/25/08 Roanoke Times article about ROXIE: Engineering students put their skills to true test
ROXIE is a brand new program that was kicked off for the spring semester of 2008. The College of Engineering, in partnership with VT-ENGAGE and Service Learning at Virginia Tech, developed a program to give the freshman engineering students real-world experience in design and problem solving.
The professors in the Department of Engineering Education (EngE) who participated in ROXIE as part of the Engineering Exploration course (EngE 1114) include: Dr. Richard Goff, Dr. Janis Terpenny, Dr. Mara Knott, Dr. Chris Williams, and Dr. Jenny Lo.
The freshman engineering students typically used to work on a fabricated problem in the classroom as part of the spring design course. Instead their professors decided to "put the fish back in the water" this semester by sending them out into the surrounding community to tackle real problems and help local community groups in the process. Students discovered the "treasure" of how satisfying it is to help others in your community and give back with your time, talent, and energy.
The 900 freshman engineering students were divided up into teams of 5-6 students. Each team selected a community partner to work with. VT-ENGAGE arranged for community partners to work with the 185 teams. The student teams were given a problem that needed solving by their community partner. Over the course of the semester, the teams worked on this problem and applied design tools they learned in the classroom to develop a solution to the problem.
It is anticipated that many of these solutions developed by the engineering teams will be put into practice by the community partners, pending available funding.
ROXIE is an example of a project that helps to improve the relationship between the university and the community. At the same time, students gained an understanding of the difficulties facing non-profit groups in today's economy.
ROXIE Student Team Winners at the Engagement Expo April 24, 2008:
Most Creative Project: Skyline Bridge for the Girl Scouts of Virginia Skyline Council in Roanoke, VA
Best Poster: Fire Ring for the Boys Scouts of America Camp Powatan in Pulaski County, VA
Most Green Project: Go Green Project for Claytor Lake State Park in Dublin, VA
Most Practical Project to Implement--Includes a $500 award to implement the project: Movable Walls project for the Habitat for Humanity Restore in Christiansburg, VA
Best of Use of Design Tools: Storage Improvement Project for the United Way of Montgomery, Radford, and Floyd
Best All Around Project--includes a $500 award to implement the project: Memorial to Deceased Employees for the Town of Christiansburg, VA
Remarks from Andy Morikawa, Executive Director of the Community Foundation of the New River Valley: "Please extend my wishes and congratulations to all of the ROXIE teams for an amazing first year. To you (EngE professors), thanks for stepping up in such a major way to demonstrate what's possible when a department gets behind community engagement and service. You helped give VT-ENGAGE real legs and raised the bar for us all. The Service Learning event on Thursday was great; a good turnout and impressive demonstration of the kinds of projects student teams took on and by which have contributed much to the community. The ROXIE teams made such an incredible contribution. Talk about being a major presence. Bravo!"
ROXIE will be repeated during the summer 2008 session and also in spring of 2009. If your community group would like to become a ROXIE partner, please let us know.
For more information, contact Karen Gilbert with VT-ENGAGE or Richard Goff with the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech.
Also available: Collegiate Times story about ROXIE--"Outreach project challenges freshmen engineers"