The Ira A Fulton College of Engineering and Technology at Brigham Young University, which annually hosts the Student Innovator of the Year competition (SIOY), is now participating in a national network of similar competitions along with West Virginia University, San Jose State University, Utah Valley University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

In 2011, a group of mechanical engineering students built a human-powered drill to dig water wells as part of a senior capstone course. The project seemed promising, but little did they know how life-changing it would become.

Chad Josephson, a PhD student studying electrical engineering, won second place in a student paper contest this September. The contest, part of the annual International Telemetering Conference (ITC), includes graduate students from universities all across the nation.

The BYU Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology was well represented at the recent national woodturning competition Turning To The Future, a juried student exhibition of items turned on a wood lathe. Of the thirteen pieces that were accepted as finalists into the post-secondary division, five were created by BYU students. Each year, BYU students have taken the top award in the post-secondary division making BYU one of the top woodturning schools in the nation. 

Tom Ingersoll, the college's 2017 Alumni Achievement Award recipient, will speak about finding joy in the engineering and technology journey this Thursday, Oct. 5 in 140 JSB. Equal parts engineer and entrepreneur, Ingersoll was most recently the CEO of Skybox Imaging before leading the sale of the company to Google. He had led the company from concept development through the build and launch of two high-resolution imaging satellites. 

The BYU Compliant Mechanisms Research Lab enjoyed enormous success at this year's Design Engineering Technical Conferences hosted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Students claimed first and second place in the Graduate Division of the 2017 ASME International Student Mechanisms Design Competition in Cleveland, Ohio, in August. 

In January, BYU launched “The Tessera,” an alternate-reality game designed by an interdisciplinary team of students. Now, eight months after its release, IndieCade, the Sundance Film Festival of the video game industry, has elected to showcase the educational computer game at its main event this October.

BYU mechanical engineering Ph.D. student, Jake Merrell, and a team of researchers across three BYU departments have developed and tested a nano composite smartfoam that can be placed inside a football helmet (and pads) to more accurately test the impact and power of hits. A coach can know within seconds how hard a player has been hit and whether or not they should be concerned about a concussion.

Allison Lee, a PhD student studying mechanical engineering, recently received a renewal of her teaching fellowship from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.