CURIE: Catalyzing UR Interest in Chemical Engineering [*IDEA}
Cost
- Jul 21 - 27
*IDEA camps are mission-driven camp sessions led by departments aiming to Increase Diversity, Equity, & Access in STEM majors and careers. These camps focus on support and empowerment of traditionally excluded populations in STEM including (but not limited to) the areas of gender, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and ability. The absence of their talents is a detriment to the STEM fields. IDEA camps provide a safe environment to build a community of peers and mentors who empower one another to be confident in their exploration of STEM. All are welcome to apply.
Chemical engineering is a discipline that is organized around producing useful materials by combining ideas from science and mathematics. In most cases, a chemical engineer takes a scientific process, or discovery, and engineers it so that it can be made on a large scale. This makes the products produced by these processes more affordable. Because chemical engineers make food, clothes, power, medicines, and plastic on a large scale, they are cheaper for all of us! Camps have explored many exciting topics within chemical engineering, such as:
- Working with big engineering equipment such as distillation towers in a chemical plant in a virtual interactive session with chemical engineers.
- Making plastics from scratch using an extruder machine.
- Video tours of chemical plants in the Champaign-Urbana area
Camp activities include:
- Playing with Silly Putty to understand the physics of fluids.
- Playing computer games to understand protein function in our body.
- Understanding how engineers make large amounts of chemicals used in everyday products.
- Meeting with faculty, and graduate and undergraduate students to learn about the chemical engineering discipline and research.
This year’s camp will include most of these topics and projects but is subject to change.
Campers will go on field trips (online or in-person depending on the prevailing COVID situation) to further understand concepts within chemical engineering and to witness how these topics apply to the real world. In the 2023 camp, we plan to organize visits to local chemical plants such as Lyondellbasell Plant in Tuscola, IL, and Abbott Power Plant in Champaign, IL. We will learn about life in a chemical plant from engineers working on-site!