The Bridge - Issue 2, 2023 - 30

Chapter News
HKN Spends a Day in Pittsburgh
IEEE-HKN is a community of communities that interact
and learn from one another. Within the society,
friendships are forged and collaborations are created.
In February, three university chapters in Pennsylvania
got together to do just that. Beta Delta Chapter of
the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), Epsilon Chapter
of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), and
Sigma Chapter of Carnegie-Mellon (CMU) gathered in
Pittsburgh for a day of social and technical activities. The
HKN chapters also welcomed peers from their schools'
IEEE Student Branches, IEEE Power & Energy Society
and Power Electronics Society chapters, and Radio
Clubs for this in-person event.
The effort it took to plan and execute the full day of
activities is paying off in other ways, too. Epsilon Chapter
president, Aaryan Patel said that the event " helped
the Penn State chapter in increasing engagement and
getting corporate contacts... and we were struggling
with both these things before. " Helbig touches on
another positive outcome. She says that doing this
enabled her chapter " to learn how to plan events of this
scope, magnitude, and type and to collaborate... with
other chapters. "
It is the hope that HKN chapters seek and create
opportunities like this, to meet fellow HKN members,
and connect wherever possible. This inter-chapter and
inter-club event was supported in part by the IEEE-HKN
Student Chapter Support Initiative, which awards small
grants to university chapters in good standing. All three
chapters involved in the event applied for and received
grant funds through this program to offset the costs
of participation. The goal of the initiative is to fuel the
innovation and ingenuity of IEEE-HKN, its chapters, and
its members.
The day started with a gathering and a catered meal
at Carnegie-Mellon. This was followed by a Keysight
Technologies-sponsored interference Fox Hunt, where
participants searched for signals originating from
commercially available IoT devices. These devices were
placed around the CMU and Pitt campuses, and teams
competed to be the first to find the hidden transmitter.
The day closed at Dave and Buster's for some fun
arcade games.
This event not only brought members from different
HKN chapters together, but also fostered connections
between students from the same school who might not
have otherwise met. Each chapter has seen increased
member engagement in the time since their day in
Pittsburgh. Sabrina Helbig, Beta Delta Chapter president,
reflects, " Even within a month of the event, we're
seeing some increased excitement... we're able to get
our chapter's visibility out there a little bit more... it's
exciting as a smaller chapter to gain some traction and
momentum as a result of an event like this. "
THE BRIDGE
https://teaching.ieee.org/
The Bridge - Issue 2, 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Bridge - Issue 2, 2023
