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YouTube series highlights engineering in everyday objects
Arts & Entertainment
TECHNICIAN
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PAGE 8 • THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018
YouTube series highlights engineering in everyday objects
Bryan Cambra
Correspondent
NC State’s College of Engineering is one of the top engineering schools in the United States. Despite its popularity, however, it’s very easy for students to forget the full applications of engineering. Luckily, Laura Bottomley, director of Women in Engineering and The Engineering Place, and Nehemiah Mabry, a civil engineering grad, plan to show how diverse its implementation can be with their new series. Engineering Everywhere is a video miniseries featured on NC State’s YouTube channel that is written and hosted by Bottomley and directed by Mabry along with his digital media company, STEMedia. The series features short videos showcasing engineering’s uses in everyday life. The first episode was uploaded Oct. 3, 2018, with the next planned for a December release.
Mabry and Bottomley, who had known each other since the former was an undergrad, had desired to work together on a project for the outreach program for some time.
“She and I are people who do a lot of engineering outreach,” Mabry said, “so it was always recommended that the two of us get together and work on something. When she had the idea for this, we decided to give it a shot.”
Bottomley has worked in engineering outreach programs for close to 20 years, and as the current director of The Engineering Place
ENGINEERING continued page 10
COURTESY OF LAURA BOTTOMLEY/NC STATE YOUTUBE
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Current Sheriff Donnie Harrison Challenger Gerald Baker
• Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison refused to fire a deputy who was charged with assault after unleashing his K-9 dog on an unarmed black man in April.1
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MAKE AN INFORMED CHOICE ON NOVEMBER 6
Arts & Entertainment PAGE 10 • THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 TECHNICIAN Penny Wars event encourages donation of spare change
Ruby Shah
Correspondent
It’s called Penny Wars and, for the past three days, it pitted student orginizations against each other in friendly competition to collect as many pennies as possible and display their love for NC State. The event was part of Red and White Week, five days of school pride and festivities leading up to Saturday’s homecoming football game.
Penny Wars took place early this week, from Monday Oct. 29 to Wednesday Oct. 31.
“I like how we get to be a part of the homecoming community and show Wolfpack pride,” said Ellison Lambert, a fourth-year studying parks, recreation & tourism management.
Penny Wars was established in 2015 as a part of Red and White Week by the NC State Alumni Association. In 2016, the event raised almost $2,160 just through the spare change found in students’ pockets. By working together, students and faculty helped make this event what it is today.
Every year, a new organization is chosen to get the pennies collected. For Penny Wars 2018, the Student Alumni Association will be donating the amount of money raised to the Student Emergency Fund, which is a campus organization meant to help students that have experienced an unexpected financial crisis. These donations will help provide these students with priority needs and academic supplies. This allows all students, no matter what their financial status, to be successful at NC State. Between the Alumni Association’s Penny Wars event and Students for University Advancement’s Blood Connection event, the combined goal for these fundraisers was $4,000.
Whichever student organization accumulates the most loose change is considered the winner. The winner retains bragging rights until the following year.
Penny Wars is considered an important event for many students across campus, whether they benefit from the donations or are experiencing this event for the first time. Many students come around to Penny Wars, either to help with or to participate in the event.
“We get to interact with a lot of students quickly,” said Kara Mulligan, the assistant director of annual giving.
Giving back to the NC State community is the main goal of Penny Wars and has been for four years now, as mentioned by Lambert.
“I think it’s really important [because] it raises awareness for the students’ emergency fund, so we’re able to help a lot of students in need,” Lambert said.
The students and faculty of various organizations come together to help make this event a success. The main organizations that help run this event are the Students for University Advancement and the Student Alumni Association. A ton of work is put into making an event of this caliber a success.
“[It takes] a lot of organization, good planning skills, time management and a great team to help put it all together,” Lambert said.
Another goal of Penny Wars is to raise awareness of why it’s important to give back to the NC State community. Through these donations, students will be prepared if an unexpected financial crisis comes. By helping to providing these students with the necessary resources, everyone can have the help they need to be successful at NC State University. This event not only shows the power of giving, but also provides a unique way to do so.
CONTRIBUTED BY ELLISON LAMBERT
ENGINEERING
continued from page 8
for K-20 Engineering as well as the Women in Engineering and K-12 Outreach programs, she’s always looking for new ways to expand her audience.
“In the years I’ve been working with the engineering outreach, one of the biggest challenges is getting people to understand how varied it is,” Bottomley said. “I wanted a way to show everyone that engineering really is everywhere around us.”
The focus of the first episode — the tread patterns in shoes — is one that Bottomley frequently presents to younger students to get their attention. With this idea, all they needed to do was decide how to translate it into video format.
Bottomley and Mabry had a brainstorming session with Jennifer Cox, the special assistant to the dean of engineering, where they decided on Talley Student Union as the filming location. The video concepts were brought up by Mabry, while Bottomley handled all of the educational concepts.
“I wrote out an outline on my own and showed [Bottomley],” Mabry said. “She thought it was cool, so we set a date to film it, then I got my people and some students involved.”
Despite having a basic outline and script written out, Bottomley hardly relied on it. Every second she was on-screen was improvised, including the explanations of the tread patterns.
“I had talked to some students a few minutes before we started filming to ask if we could use their shoes,” Bottomley said. “The four students had their shoes, and I brought a dance shoe from home because I didn’t think anyone would have one with them.”
While the group was brainstorming, Mabry suggested that the episodes be kept relatively short so they can keep the attention of audiences outside of engineering students.
“I probably could have talked for at least 20 minutes straight if I wanted,” Bottomley said, “but [Mabry] suggested that we keep it at about three minutes since that’s about how long most people’s attention spans would last.”
Despite its short length, the series will not be running on a weekly schedule. According to Bottomley, the first episode alone cost about $5000 to produce. While there’s no hard date for the next release, the duo has a few ideas in store for future episodes.
“We don’t know exactly how many episodes we’ll do,” Bottomley said. “It’s hard to make them due to funding and needing everyone’s schedules to align, but we’ll keep working on them as long as we’re allowed to.”
To watch the first episode of Bottomley’s Engineering Everywhere, find it on NC State’s YouTube channel, and keep an eye out for the next episode, which will be releasing in the coming winter season.
