Enhancing Engineering Interest and Skills in Community College Students through a Project Based MEMS Design Competition

This paper will showcase an innovative approach to creating interest in microsystems engineering processing and design at the community college undergraduate level. This project based curriculum begins to address some of the economic competitiveness issues raised in the recent National Academy of Sciences report “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future,” and the National Academy of Engineering’s “Engineer of 2020.” Common points raised include the students’ lack of interest, motivation, knowledge and skills required to compete in the global economy. By leveraging the Sandia National Laboratories University Alliance and its MEMS Design competition, Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) has enabled undergraduate Manufacturing Technology MEMS (Micro Electromechanical Systems) students to compete with graduate and undergraduate engineering students across the nation from Universities including: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, University of North Carolina, and the University of Illinois. The CNM design teams finished first or were runners up over the last three years resulting in many students realizing that they too were capable of pursuing an engineering career. Due to the high placement within the contest, all CNM designs have been fabricated at Sandia National Laboratories Micro Engineering Sciences Applications laboratory. These prototypes are now utilized at recruiting events for high school students as well as teacher workshops as MEMS student designed examples. The competition requires the students to productively work as a