Four MIT Sea Grant Students Place in MIT MechE De Florez Award Competition
The MIT Mechanical Engineering De Florez Award Competition honors students demonstrating “Outstanding Ingenuity and Creative Judgment” in areas that utilize mechanical engineering knowledge or practice.
Four MIT Sea Grant UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) students placed in the 2024 competition:
- Reyna Ayala: “Drag Forces on Plastic Bag Marine Debris” (2nd Prize in Undergraduate Science)
- Thao Do, Ansel Garcia-Langley, and Jessica Lam: “Deep Sea Sediment Sampler” (2nd Prize in Undergraduate Design)
The de Florez Award Competition, held on Tuesday, May 14th, focuses on student projects in two categories: Engineering Design and Engineering Science.
Engineering Design projects use MechE principles/practices to synthesize and create an ingenious design. This could be a piece of software, a new machine element, a process, a new circuit, a testing apparatus or technique, a robot, a consumer product, etc.
Engineering Science projects discover or generate new scientific understanding or principles key to advancing the practice of MechE, for example a theoretical model, or a numerical solution technique. Students must state how their innovation will contribute to the field.
