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Facebook Live: Inside FutureHAUS at Virginia Tech

Erica Corder Social Media, Video Leave a Comment

  Welcome to the Virginia Tech FutureHAUS Dubai, an innovative, interdisciplinary, and ambitious project to design and build a futuristic, modular smart home. Students and faculty from the Virginia Tech College of Architecture and Urban Studies and College of Engineering have been working nearly two years on the planning, design, and building of the home in anticipation of an international …

Two young men sit at a table and pose for a photo. On the table is a white mannequin head and neck, wearing a black helmet that looks like a baseball cap.

Engineering students take lifesaving concept to market with help from university environment and donors

Erica Corder Video, Writing Leave a Comment

A little seed money and a lot of advice goes a long way for a budding entrepreneur. Take it from the two Hokie engineering student founders of Park & Diamond, a young startup that makes collapsible, sleek bike helmets. After winning seven pitch competitions last year, many held by the Apex Center for Entrepreneurs, the company took off in a major way, earning …

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Despite bumps in the road, engineering team places third in North American autonomous vehicle competition

Erica Corder Writing Leave a Comment

After a journey that involved a crash, a dead battery, and late-night coding sprints, a Virginia Tech engineering team took home a third place finish in the first year of an autonomous vehicle competition held by Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and General Motors. Student-led Victor Tango AutoDrive was the sole team — out of eight total collegiate design teams …

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$5 million gift from alumnus and family creates pathway for 60 first-generation students per year

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When electrical engineering alumnus Joe T. May ’62 was in high school, he says he wasn’t exactly on a successful path. After a suspension for smoking cigarettes — something that today, May said, “wouldn’t raise an eyebrow,” but did then in the small Mennonite community he lived in — May’s principal allowed him to graduate only if he promised “to …

A young man poses for a photo in front of a gray building.

Alumnus tackles young alumni engagement with grassroots efforts

Erica Corder Photo, Video, Writing Leave a Comment

Dan Surber is a problem solver. But the Virginia Tech alumnus, who graduated in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial and systems engineering, saw a problem he alone couldn’t fix: he thought more young alumni should be engaged with the university. So when Eileen Van Aken, interim department head of the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, approached …