Session 1 Courses

Have you or someone you know been affected by a hurricane? Hurricanes, also known as tropical cyclones, are the most costly and deadly natural disasters worldwide. When a tropical cyclone makes landfall, it brings strong winds, rainfall, and storm surge which can all impact the environment and people's lives. In this course, we'll explore the driving mechanisms of these heinous storms and the matrix of impacts which drive the need for more research. This interactive and collaborative course will expose students to interdisciplinary research, mixed-methods, science communication, and global issues. No prior experience is necessary and software will be open-access.

We work in a collaborative lab space with several different labs from various engineering departments. We plan to have different labs teach short courses over the 2 week span to cover each of the main engineering branches (mechanical, biomedical, material science, and chemical) so that students can get an introduction into the different branches of engineering, and see how they can all be applied to biotechnology (we all do some sort of bio research, but in different fields). Aakanksha and Amanda will lead the class, but will have help from other members of our organization (Wertheim Engineer’s Biotechology Organization, WEBiO).

Are you interested in biotechnology? Do you know the difference between Mechanical, Biomedical, Chemical, and Material Science Engineering? If either of these questions interest you then you should take this course in research topics related to biotechnology in various engineering departments! Topics will range from biomaterials to cell culture to blood clotting and trauma injuries. Learn how to apply core engineering skills to solve a wide range of problems, and see which engineering department best sparks your interest.

• Be able to understand the different engineering departments and what college classes consist of as well as common careers for each type of engineering.
• Gain fundamental knowledge of biomaterials, and explore properties of hydrogels and silks.
• Gain fundamental knowledge of bacteria and how it is used in research.
• Gain fundamental knowledge in blood clotting and how it applies to trauma injuries and lung diseases.

There has been a constant struggle between hosts and the pathogens that infect them. Although great strides have been made in the research and medical fields to combat and protect us against infection, pathogens are constantly evolving new ways to escape and thrive in our bodies. This course will introduce students to the world of infectious diseases that encompasses viruses, bacteria, and parasites. In doing this we hope to provide applicable tools on how to research a pathogen of interest, compare the benefits of different vaccinations and treatments as well as sparking a passion or interest in the potential career paths attached to each topic.

• To bring awareness and spark an interest about the infectious diseases in our world
• To bring awareness to what is affecting people in our world
• To allow students to independently investigate and present their findings on a pathogen of their choosing
• Provide students with hands on experience on investigating specific pathogens in a class context
• Providing information about careers and majors that accompany each topic discussed

The best public speakers all have a few things in common, they all know how to write a speech, deliver a speech, and tailor an argument to their audience. Speech Forensics is a course in which students will learn how to do all the above and more. By taking this course, students will learn how to write and deliver public speeches, debate in a professional setting, and better their listening and critical thinking skills.

In this course students will gain the skills and confidence needed to be a successful public speaking and debater.

Learning Objectives: Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• analyze an audience
• draft an impactful speech
• speak to persuade and inform
• speak with limited preparation
• engage in debates professional debates

Course Description:

Become a pioneer in the field of autonomous driving. Market analysts forecast a $42-billion market by 2025, with more than 20 million self-driving cars on the road. This course will provide you with a thorough overview of current engineering methods in the self-driving car business.

You will learn ...

• about commonly used hardware and software
• to get a leg up in this field
• about most recent advancements in the autonomous technology and their working procedure throughout your classes.
• about security from our simulator's very realistic driving trajectories and environmental conditions

When you finish the course, you'll know everything there is to know about how self-driving cars work and gain insights about what else you need to know to get into the autonomous driving industry.

Help students gain introductory knowledge on self-driving cars.

Build a basic, yet comprehensive understanding of self-driving cars. Provide learning directions and tools in the field of self-driving cars for students’ future study in their college/university career.

Course Description:

As of 2020, 65 percent of all jobs, and 92 percent of traditional STEM jobs, require postsecondary education and training. This course aims to prepare college- and career-ready (CCR) graduates to enter and succeed in entry-level positions and beyond. This course will challenge students to explore, develop, and take steps toward their own postsecondary plans.

The course will be conducted in a workshop-like manner and go over the following topics:

• CV/resume
• College Admissions/College Application
• Personal Essays
• Scholarship Postings/Financial Aid resources
• Career Exploration
• Interview Workshops
• Job Postings/Work Permit Applications/Summer Program opportunities

Course Description:

Are you interested in solving global and environmental challenges? Are you interested in learning a programming language? Are you interested in computational and statistical skills? This course is just for you. You will learn to apply computational modeling and statistics in environmental datasets of your choice to solve real-world problems. At the end of the course, you will have a good introduction command of your computer language, statistics knowledge, research skills, and a possible publishable research paper. We are excited to teach and learn with you. See you soon in class.

The goal of the course is to develop research and analytical skills while working with a dataset of your choice. The class will be focused on learning data analysis and visualization tools, formulating research questions and hypotheses, and conducting a literature review.

The courses will assess you on the following tasks:

• 1. Discover and download real datasets (CSV, Excel, netCDF format)
• 2. Loading data into Pandas or python and performing any necessary data cleanup, encoding, coding, and dealing with missing values.
• 3. Performing scientific calculations involving tasks like gru[ing, applying mathematical formulas, aggregating, etc.
• 4. Visualizing results in tabular and well-formatted visual plots.
• 5. Potential writing of a publishable brilliant research paper (not a requirement, just for motivation and practice)

Course Description:

Have you ever wondered how computers add? It’s not magic. In this short course, you’ll learn about how computers treat numbers at a fundamental level. You will be introduced to foundational theories, applications, and tools for computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, math, and logic. Topics covered in this course include logic gates, Boolean algebra, and number systems. This course culminates with a college-level project that you can list on your resume when you apply for colleges, internships, or careers.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand basic building blocks of logic circuits
• Be able to simplify complex logic equations using a variety of methods
• Be able to convert and perform arithmetic on binary numbers
• Design and implement an adder circuit using logic gates
• Be able to implement a variety of arithmetic circuits

Prerequisites:

• Algebra II

Course Description:

Have you ever read about a crime and felt a lot of empathy for the victim or strong dislike for a suspect? Have you watched a crime documentary and questioned what role the victim and the suspect had leading up to a victimization? If yes, then this course is for you. Most US citizens above 18 years of age are eligible for jury duty, meaning that they may be put in the position of deciding another person’s guilt. In this course we will be discussing perceptions of parties that are involved in crimes form the point of view of a potential juror. We will discuss a wide range of crimes, perceptions of suspects, defendants, victims and evidence as well as discuss recent high-profile cases such as the Gabbi Petito case and Gypsy Blanchard case and what influences our perceptions about crime, guilt, culpability, and empathy.

By the end of this course you should have acquired:

• Knowledge of the criminal justice process
• Knowledge of the different components of a criminal trial.
• Knowledge about jury selection and its’ purpose
• Knowledge about various factors that can influence perceptions of victims, suspects, defendants, evidence, guilt, culpability, and empathy.
• The ability to think critically about the perceptions we have and what influences these perceptions

Course Description:

Do you want to solve real-world problems using your creativity and analytical ability? It could be as tiny as a click button design, and as huge as a whole interface. This is an enriched learning experience where you will learn about people, brainstorm with your classmate, scratch your thought, test your ideas, etc. 

This course will use a project-based learning approach to help you engage in this exciting user experience design study! No prior coding or design experience is necessary for this course.

The course goal is to introduce students to UXD and provide them with a chance to solve a real-world interaction design problem.

By the end of the course, students should be able to:

1. Define what’s “user experience design”.
2. Understand key concepts in interaction design.
3. Analyze technologies in terms of the concepts of interaction design.
4. Conduct exploratory user experience design activities to understand a design space when designing a new user interaction.
5. Design and produce an interactive prototype of a complete design concept to present to a client for new user interaction.