Feb 23, 2019
UAF’s College of Engineering and Mines (CEM) hosts an engineering week open house every year in conjunction with national engineers week. The event is an opportunity for the Fairbanks community to discover, engage and enjoy all things engineering. This year’s open house held on Saturday, February 23rd, was attended by approximately 500 people and all activities were located in the Engineering Learning and Innovation Facility. The University Transportation Centers, CESTiCC and CSET, under the AUTC umbrella each sponsored an activity. CESTiCC’s “Making Concrete” activity taught young engineers and their families about the materials that go into building roadways and maintaining traction in the winter. The hands-on component of the activity was making playdough, introducing them to following a recipe, measuring ingredients and mixing the materials together to make something new. CSET's activity, "Safe Stopping Distance," focused on determining the friction coefficient for different surfaces to calculate the safe stopping distance. Measurements were taken on ice, gravel and dry pavement and used to calculate the friction coefficient of each surface. The friction coefficients were then input into the stopping distance formula to calculate the distance required to stop at 45 mph on each surface. Many attendees were startled by the distances required to stop.
