Recent sightings

Engineering creeps
Scooting on mechanic carts across the terrazzo floor in the lobby of the Engineering Centers Building, students on the Challenge X team hold “creeper” races as part of a team-building exercise. The group of students is modifying a hybrid vehicle for Challenge X, a national competition that pits 17 universities in a three-year odyssey to convert a standard-issue, gasoline-powered Equinox into a vehicle that runs on a mix of gas and electric energy. The team is lead by Glenn Bower, the project’s adviser and a faculty associate in mechanical engineering.

Photo: Jeff Miller

UW–Madison engineering students paddle their 21-foot-long, 155-pound concrete canoe across Monona Bay during the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Great Lakes Regional Concrete Canoe Conference. Wisconsin placed first overall, advancing to the National Concrete Canoe Competition, to be held June 15-17 at Oklahoma State University. The competition challenges schools to create a canoe entirely out of concrete that is able to not only float in water but also able to compete and win two concrete canoe races.

Photo: Jeff Miller

Taking a break from end-of-the-spring-semester academic stress, undergraduate students Robert Mandelbaum and Michael Pinchasick, right, don helmets and giant gloves, and duke it out while bouncing around in an inflatable boxing ring set up on Library Mall. Both students were breathless after only a few minutes of punching with what they later learned are gloves weighing nearly 15 pounds each. The game is part of Bucky’s State Fair, an All-Campus Party event sponsored by the Wisconsin Alumni Student Board.

Photo: Jeff Miller