Engineering Club Holds First Meeting

Gayu Lakshmanan, Heritage Portraits Editor| September 2, 2022

On Monday, Aug. 29, at 4:30 p.m., the Engineering Club met to greet new members and discuss their activities for the year.

The Engineering Club is split into two teams, the main build team and the competition team. In previous years, the build project would be the main activity for students to do, with opportunities for competitions given on the side. But since last year, the Engineering Club has set aside dedicated members and time towards The American Rocketry Challenge(TARC).

“A lot of people were expressing interest in doing larger projects other than the build project [since] the build project is mostly civil and mechanical engineering. And as officers we really wanted to give as many options as possible just because engineering is so diverse,” Engineering Club President Manika Aggarwal ‘23 said. “The rocketry challenge seemed to resonate really well with everyone so we decided if people wanted to do something like that we would give that as an option.”

The main build project this year will be a continuation of last year’s project to build a large mechanism that was capable of letting one elementary schooler lift up multiple of their classmates, utilizing various simple machines.

“I hope that we get to finish [the main] build this year,” Engineering Club Build Lead Valentina Larina ‘23 said. “But I also hope that all of the people that are going to be in the build project will learn what they want to learn about the process of building a product in engineering.”

The Engineering Club will be attempting their second year of TARC this year. Last year, the Westwood teams ended the season without qualifying, so their goal this year is to reach the nationals competition in Virginia. Though the Engineering Club meets every other Monday, TARC members must meet every Monday to handle the workload necessary for the project and ensure they meet their goal.

“This year we really emphasized the possibilities [of what] we can do in TARC so I think that’s a really good thing that we did to get a lot of activity,” Engineering Club Competition Lead Zubin Chabra ‘23 said. “[Our] biggest goal [this year] is to go to Virgina right, so I really hope we can learn from our experiences last year.”

The Engineering Club will meet again on Sept. 12th in room C1309 to officially start on their respective projects.

  • Discussing plans with some of the new members, Competition Lead and Historian Zubin Chabra ’23 and his fellow officers start to close up their first meeting of the year. This year will be the second year of the Engineering Club’s participation in The American Rocketry Competition (TARC), and the competition has received almost double the membership for TARC this year. “I just can’t wait until we show up to a random cornfield with four teams and 40 students, while all the other schools have like one team,” Chabra said.

    Gayu Lakshmanan
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  • Explaining the Engineering Club’s main project for the year to new members, Build Lead Valentina Larina prepares to continue a lever project in the 2022-2023 school year. Last year the club aimed to create a lever capable of lifting multiple elementary students to show off at schools, after completing the A-Frame at the end of the school year, the club aims to finish the project in time to do demonstrations at other schools. “We plan to use it at an elementary feeder school to get kids more interested in engineering,” Larina said.

    Gayu Lakshmanan
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  • Presenting their build project to the members of the Engineering Club, Club President Manika Aggarwal ’23 and Build Lead Valentina Larina ’23 start off their new year presentation. “This year we are trying to work on more female involvement, and more involvement from everyone in general,” Aggarwal said, “so we have a lot of different types of engineering.”

    Gayu Lakshmanan
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