University of Florida College of Engineering
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
ASME UF C/O Dr. Anil Rao
Gainesville, Florida 32611-6250
314 MAE-A, PO Box 116300
http://www.mae.ufl.edu/asme/
To whom it may concern,
My name is Kevin Wilt, and I am the President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) at the
University of Florida (UF). Our chapter’s mission is to serve the growing mechanical engineering community at UF by
providing opportunities for students to grow into professional engineers and become leaders in developing solutions for
tomorrow’s real world problems. In carrying out our mission, we aim to provide essential opportunities, resources, and a
networking hub for mechanical and aerospace engineering students. We strive to enhance the member’s experience and
prepare them for a successful career during and after college. To make this vision a reality, we implement three strategic
initiatives:
1. Integrated Design Teams
2. Community Outreach Events
3. Professional Development Programs
Design Teams
We currently sponsor six integrated design teams. Our first and longest standing team is the Human Powered
Vehicle Competition (HPVC) team. On the HPVC team, engineering students work in teams to design and build a
lightweight, composite, bicycle-like vehicle to compete against other universities across the nation. Working with the
larger VEX Robotics Competition (VRC) league, our VEX team competes at the international level with robot designs. In
this competition, students are challenged with designing, fabricating, and programming a remotely controlled robot to
complete given objectives. The objective changes every year, encouraging the team to stay in a constant state of design.
Every year, we also organize a Student Design Competition (SDC) team to represent UF at the regional Student
Professional Development Conference (SPDC). The SDC challenge for this year has not been released, but last year the
challenge was to design a remotely controlled vehicle that was able to negotiate around obstacles, navigate to inspection
points, and bring a sensor back to the designated return area. The given objectives were inspired by the tragedy at the
Fukushima nuclear facility, in addition to finding a solution to remotely determine levels of radioactivity and inspect for
damage, and this year’s challenge is expected to be similar in structure. Also in the past year, ASME has joined together
with the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA) and UF’s Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
racecar team to pioneer the establishment of a Research and Development (R&D) team. This R&D team is now in place to
explore, analyze, and validate research initiatives of the SAE team in order to give them a competitive edge in their
international competition.
I am excited to announce two new programs starting this fall semester. ASME will be taking part in a joint venture
with the College of Medicine at the University of Florida to rejuvenate the Wilmot Gardens on the UF campus. These
gardens are a rehabilitation tool utilized by UF & Shands to help recuperate patients from the Veterans Memorial Hospital
and Shands Hospital in Gainesville. With support from the College of Engineering, our students will design, manufacture,
and implement a new greenhouse in the gardens, as well as create gardening tables for handicapped patients. Along with
this garden team, ASME at UF is also taking on the challenge of creating an underwater Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV)
to compete in the international Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) competition. This team approached our
leadership in the past year to create a new competition on the UF campus. They will compete with teams from all over
the world in a competition that is highly integrated into high schools and colleges all over the United States. In their first
year, they worked closely with a distinguished professor at UF to optimize his Vortex Ring Thrusters (VRTs) and are ready
to now implement them on the full sized vehicle. We support all these different design teams because we believe they
provide ASME members with a great platform to develop solutions to a range of design problems and begin cultivating
the problem solving skills and experience that industry needs.
1
The Foundation for the Gator Nation
An Equal Opportunity Institution
University of Florida College of Engineering
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
ASME UF C/O Dr. Anil Rao
Gainesville, Florida 32611-6250
314 MAE-A, PO Box 116300
http://www.mae.ufl.edu/asme/
Community Outreach Events
Reaching out to the surrounding community is a high priority at ASME. Every year, we take part in a program called
GatorTRAX. GatorTRAX is an initiative that provides students from the local Gainesville community in grades K–12 with
opportunities to learn mathematics and to stir excitement about engineering with free hands-on activities. Through
GatorTRAX, we collaborate with other engineering organizations on campus to coordinate regular classroom instruction
sessions, Saturday engineering programs, and campus tours. In addition to reaching out to students in the Gainesville
community, we strive to connect with our fellow engineers on campus.
Last semester, we worked with several professors to coordinate ASME member-lead review sessions for core
undergraduate engineering classes such as Control Systems Engineering, Mechanics of Materials, and Mechanical Statics.
These sessions proved to be a tremendous success as there were more than 40 students in attendance. The feedback and
testimonials we received from the students was overwhelmingly favorable as they reported feeling more confident before
an exam and scored higher. Due to this positive feedback, we plan on continuing these review sessions. Our organization
annually participates in the nationally recognized Engineering Week (E-Week) reaching more than 2,000 engineering
students and community members in total through both events. E-Week is a week long, campus-wide celebration about
why it is great to be an engineer.
Professional Development
We realize that becoming an engineer does not happen overnight, so we host and attend events to prepare our
members in making the transition from engineering student to engineering professional. In the past, we were given the
privilege of touring the SpaceX launch facility and aircraft hangars at Tyndall Air Force Base. In these tours were exposed
what real-life engineering looks like. We invite industry speakers to come to our chapter meetings and teach us about
current products and opportunities the company offers. This allows the members to appreciate companies even more by
learning their inner-workings and what is available for them. Additionally, through our attendance at in-state ASME
conferences, members gain valuable insight into emerging technology and have opportunities to network with other
ASME chapters. We have found that professional development is something that is best started early, so this year we are
starting a mentorship program with AIAA to reach out to incoming freshman class to improve retention rates and
encourage campus involvement.
Another incredible event we were privileged to be a part of last year was Intel’s “STAY WITH IT” event, which is a
speaker series created in conjunction with the President’s initiative to decrease dropout rates in STEM fields. Working
alongside coordinators at Intel, we were able to bring in speakers Dr. Kevin Bowcutt, a chief fellow of hypersonic research
at Boeing, and Mr. Dan Priestly, a design engineer at Tesla Motors. Both of these gentlemen spent the afternoon
interacting with students in a session sponsored by Rockstar Energy Drinks, and then gave speeches to a large crowd
about what it means to them to be an engineer, and why the student’s classes are necessary to becoming an engineer.
2
The Foundation for the Gator Nation
An Equal Opportunity Institution
University of Florida College of Engineering
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
ASME UF C/O Dr. Anil Rao
Gainesville, Florida 32611-6250
314 MAE-A, PO Box 116300
http://www.mae.ufl.edu/asme/
As president of ASME, I am writing to invite your organization to consider making a $500 contribution to help
us meet our financial goals this year. At this point, we have raised $10,000 out of our goal of $24,189 and with your
donation we can move one step closer to fulfilling that goal. For a breakdown of our budget, see page 4. Your support
is critical in financially enabling us to provide our design teams with resources, outreach to our community, and travel
to engineering facilities and conferences. We believe that every contribution made goes beyond what meets the eye and
is an investment into the next generation of engineering leaders. Any support you are able to send will significantly
benefit our members, community, and university as a whole. Some of the benefits your organization will gain from
supporting our chapter include:
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Mechanical engineering talent pipeline for Intern/Co-op candidates and full-time hires at your company.
Company logo on ASME UF apparel, website, and acknowledgement of donation in the ASME newsletter.
Recognition at general body meetings, website (www.mae.ufl.edu/asme) and outreach events.
Recognition at all ASME competitions to include VEX, HPVC, SDC, MATE, and R&D at the international SAE
competition.
The executive-board and I are committed to our goal of providing opportunities for students to develop into
professional engineers and become tomorrow’s integrated team leaders, designers, analysts, and managers. All of our
actions must be measured by our success in achieving this goal. If you are interested in helping us reach this goal by
making a donation, please contact our Vice Chair External Mike Schulz at asmeuf.external@gmail.com with your
interest. If we do not hear back from you within two weeks, he will follow up with you to discuss your potential donation.
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of our request!
Sincerely,
Kevin Wilt
ASME UF President
3
The Foundation for the Gator Nation
An Equal Opportunity Institution
University of Florida College of Engineering
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
ASME UF C/O Dr. Anil Rao
Gainesville, Florida 32611-6250
314 MAE-A, PO Box 116300
http://www.mae.ufl.edu/asme/
Donation Levels:
All donations are tax deductible.
More than $2000 -Platinum
● Recognition Plaque and Limited Edition ASME T-shirts
(see website for shirt design).
● Logo appearance on ASME website, apparel,
and newsletter.
● Logo will appear on choice of two:
HPVC design, VEX Robot, MATE ROV, or SDC design.
● Signed E-board picture.
ASME 2012-2013 Officer Team
$1,500-$1,999 - Gold
● Limited Edition ASME T-shirts and gift basket.
● Logo will appear on choice of:
HPVC design, VEX Robot, MATE ROV, or SDC design.
● Logo appearance on ASME website, apparel,
and newsletter.
● Signed E-board picture.
$500 Donation - Silver
● Limited Edition ASME T-shirts.
● Logo appearance on ASME website, apparel,
and newsletter.
● Signed E-board picture.
Innovation round during the ASME-HPVC competition of
spring 2013. Our team won 2nd place in innovation and 9th
place overall.
ASME VEX Robotics team competing at World
Championship tournament in Anaheim, California
ROV prototype created by our MATE team lead
while in high school. UF will be competing for the
first time ever in the competition in 2014.
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The Foundation for the Gator Nation
An Equal Opportunity Institution
University of Florida College of Engineering
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
ASME UF C/O Dr. Anil Rao
Gainesville, Florida 32611-6250
314 MAE-A, PO Box 116300
http://www.mae.ufl.edu/asme/
ASME UF 2013-2014 Budget
Design Teams
HPVC
VEX Robotics
R&D Team
SDC
MATE ROV
Total
Professional
Development
Facility Tours
$ 654
Conferences
$ 3285
General Body Meetings
$ 1300
Total
$ 4954
E-Week Fair
$ 1500
Outreach Events
$ 7500
$ 4000
$ 500
$ 400
$ 4000
$ 16400
Review Sessions
$ 150
Socials
$ 600
Other Programs
$ 300
Total
Grand Total
Dr. Kevin Bowcutt speaking at the “Stay With It”
event to students from ASME, AIAA, and IEEE.
$ 2550
$ 24189
Research and Design Team photo. The team is
made up of members from ASME, SAE, and AIAA.
Student Design Competition team competing at
student professional development conference.
ASME first general body meeting with attendance
over 200 students.
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The Foundation for the Gator Nation
An Equal Opportunity Institution