RSEi Events and New Member Election March 2024 Update

RSEi Events and New Member Election March 2024 Update

by Ayaan Ahmad ’26, Public Relations Chair

Recent months here at RSEi have been filled with activities. The Spring 2024 semester started off with a series of events aimed at recruiting new members. One such event was a seminar hosted by Dan Lannan ’19. Dan discussed in detail the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a variety of industries including its uses. He also talked about building startups and what it takes to successfully get one running. Dan himself is no stranger to startups as his latest tech startup, Thin-Air, is focused on using AI to build software components and interfaces.

Activities at RSEi were not limited to educational seminars. We had good few dinners as well to let people know that we aren’t just about work; we do other things too! Following the election of our ten (10) new associate members, we held a celebration dinner where Chicken Alfredo was the featured dish. However, Abedalah Saif ’26 and I had class late that evening, so we were not able to cook. (Abedalah and I consider ourselves THE house chefs.) Lucas Masotti ’26 and Farris Nefissi ’26 stepped up, but the Master Chefs were not in the kitchen, so the dinner suffered a little. (Sorry Lucas!)

Trustee Charlie Adkins ‘94 held a Soldering Workshop in late February with assistance from Trustee Eric Stoever ’04. This event was quite an enjoyable one for me. I got to solder together different electronic parts to make an electronic oak tree that was illuminated with LEDs. Being a Computer Science (CS) major who spends too much time with software, hardware can be challenging. I accidentally soldered the LEDs on the wrong side of the circuit board, making my 1+ hour of work all for nought. Charlie might have been a little taken aback by my error. The Electrical Engineers (EE) got a nice laugh out of my error as they are usually grasping at any way to make fun of CS majors.

I wasn’t the only one who was embarrassed at the Soldering Workshop. As I was plugging a battery into my device, a massive flurry of sparks flew into my face. An anonymous RSEi member accidentally had the power cord for their soldering station wrap around and touch the tip of their soldering iron. The electrical shortage was caused when the tip burned through the cord’s insulation causing me to jump back in my seat. No harm was done. Charlie says this happens a lot at the high school where he teaches.

As you can see, it has been an eventful semester so far. Besides events, RSEi members voted on bringing 10 associate members to full membership. (BTW:We now have a total of 17 new members for this school year.) There is a lot more work to be done however as we have the semiannual Trustee and Society meetings in April.