What to know
- Who can participate: Any engineering or STEM majors
- Meeting days: Mondays
- Meeting time: 7 p.m.
- Meeting location: The Engineering building, Room 218. Student-led ASME projects may meet at additional times and locations.
About the club
If you’re an engineering student who can’t make it through a semester’s workload without blowing a fuse or getting your wires crossed, look no further than NAU’s student-led branch of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). With weekly challenges, streamlined workshops and opportunities to compete in national engineering competitions, the club ensures its attendees are not only confident putting their skills into practice but also prepared to join the rapidly expanding engineering workforce after graduation.
Q&A
Undergraduate mechanical engineering students Sol Sheldon and Emily Kinzler joined ASME during their freshman year to improve their resumes and try their hand at the club’s engineering projects. Now, as the club’s president and vice president, respectively, they’ve leveled up to hosting challenges and helping fellow undergraduate engineers prepare to enter the field.
Tell us a bit about this club’s history. How was this club formed? What is your mission statement?
Sheldon: ASME came to be out of the need for professional development for students before they join the engineering field. This club works underneath an international organization called ASME, which specializes in standardization, research, education and professional development. The club served and continues to serve as a local and NAU-specific resource for all NAU engineering students.
How and why did you get involved with ASME?
Sheldon: During my freshman year, the club’s president and vice president visited my introductory computer-aided design class, and I felt welcome to visit their Monday meetings. I got to know my peers and gained valuable advice regarding my own academic and professional journey at NAU. I then partook in the escape rooms project, worked on the officer team, led the human-powered vehicle project last year and continue to serve this club as president.
Kinzler: I saw a flier about it in my freshman year and saw the potential to grow my resume through the Gore Resume Workshop and the ASME projects that I could join. From then on, I gained many friends, had great experiences and continued my involvement, leading to me being this year’s standing vice president.
What kinds of things does ASME do throughout the year, both at regular meetings and any other events?
Kinzler: Our weekly meetings include mini engineering competitions, technical skill workshops covering things like soldering and coding, professional development workshops and fun socials.
Sheldon: Otherwise, we host projects that students can join throughout the year, like our escape rooms project, where we build themed escape rooms from the ground up that NAU students can play during the spring semester. These projects are free to participate in, and those who help us make them can put them on their resumes to make them stand out. We also like to host tours of engineering facilities throughout Arizona, like our Nissan Test Track tour that we went on last semester, where we got to see Nissan’s testing facility in Phoenix!
Tell us a bit about the club’s competition opportunities and what they entail.
Sheldon: ASME National hosts many engineering competitions that students can join in teams or independently. This includes an e-Human Powered Vehicle Competition (e-HPVC) where, in a team, students build a vehicle with electronic subsystems powered with chains and sprockets like a traditional bike.
Other competitions include the Student Design Competition, a robot-building competition; the Innovative Additive Manufacturing 3D Challenge, an innovation-based competition where one redesigns preexisting products; and the Elevator Pitch Competition and the Oral Presentation Competition, which both let students show off their presentation skills. All of these take place on a national stage, so we can represent NAU in front of teams across the country.
How does the club help create and support future engineers?
Kinzler: Our club helps support future engineers in many ways! We bring in professionals from the industry to talk about the real world after graduation and their experiences in the field, bettering students by giving them achievable expectations for their future. These same companies have served our students in the past by providing them opportunities for internships and jobs for post-grad life.
We also help students with their academics by offering peer-to-peer assistance and hosting academic-focused meetings with advisers, professors and anyone in between. All in all, though, we are students who help students, and we serve as a community for anyone to find new friendships and relationships in, making our time here at NAU just a little bit sweeter.
Tell us about a favorite memory you have from your time in ASME.
Sheldon: The day that my e-HPVC team last year finally got our beautiful aluminum frame that we designed and welded with help from NovaKinetics here in Flagstaff was my favorite day. Our year-long work manifested itself into something real and tangible, and all I could feel was pride for my team and me.
Kinzler: Watching NAU students play in the escape rooms that I helped bring to life was magical and definitely a highlight of my year. My months of working on this project came to be the highlight of someone’s weekend!
What advice do you have for someone looking to join ASME?
Kinzler: Just show up! We have so many opportunities for students throughout the year, semester and weeks that even if you don’t have time for all of it, it will still benefit you and help you if you come to just one event or meeting.
Sheldon: We accept all engineering majors, as we all share a passion for engineering, tinkering and critical thinking, as well as a harsh homework load. We all plan to be professionals after our time here at NAU, but while we are here, we might as well use it for self-betterment and fun! While our name says, “mechanical engineers,” we believe that any engineering or STEM major can benefit from our meetings. Also, we always have a demand for specialists within our projects, so come stop by!
What are some things ASME has coming up that you’re looking forward to and people should be excited about?
Kinzler: Our escape rooms project is underway, and we are always looking to recruit volunteers for aesthetic design, puzzle designs and more! Also, if you are looking to join and participate in any of the ASME National competitions, the teams are also always open for new teammates. Be on the lookout for our upcoming specialized meetings, including our academic advising meeting, the biomedical engineering at NAU seminar and our Halloween social.
Find out more about NAU ASME’s upcoming events by following @asmenau on Instagram.