The University of Alabama

A team of undergraduate students at The University of Alabama tackled this issue recently as part of a partnership with NASA to turn technology discovered by the space agency into viable products. Part of the STEM and CREATE PATH to MBA programs in UA Culverhouse College of Business, the NASA Technology Transfer University program, or NASA T2U, allows freshman and sophomore students to use NASA intellectual property to solve existing challenges.

For the seventh time in nine years, the Alabama Astrobotics team won NASA's Robotic Mining Competition.

The University of Alabama's Model UN team moved up 10 spots in the 2020-2021 North American College Model U.N. World Division rankings. UA ascended to No. 15 after earning the Outstanding Large Delegation at the HallMUN virtual Model UN conference in November and other awards throughout the year.

UA freshman Jacob Glidewell has been competing in mathematics competitions since eighth grade, constantly trying to push himself to do better and grow in his skill. This year, he has once again succeeded in his challenge by placing in the top 100 competitors of the Putnam Competition. The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition is one of the most prestigious competitions for undergraduate students in the world. Now in its 81st year, the competition has nearly 1600 students competing from different institutions around the country.

Two University of Alabama College of Engineering student teams and one individual student received top awards at an annual hackathon competition. VolHacks 2018 was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Sept. 28-30. This annual hacking competition involved students from all over the country competing and using programming and design skills to create software projects. Three UA projects created during the 36-hour event received awards, which were overall first place, second place and Best Duo Hack. Seventy teams participated in this year's competition including 13 Alabama students, 11 of which competed as part of UA Association for Computing Machinery and two students who competed individually. Mayank Agarwal, a computer science major from Surat, India, graduating in 2021, won first place overall with his program "Qlink Music," a music sharing app that allows people to quickly link to music and share it with friends regardless of what app they use to listen to music. In addition to first place, Agarwal also received two of the competition's sponsored awards for Best Mobile App and Best Use of Google Cloud Platform. "VolHacks was an amazing experience I was so excited to win the two sponsor prizes that I didn't even see the first prize coming, especially after witnessing so many other awesome projects," Agarwal said. "I'm really happy with how my app turned out. Demoing it to the judges and other students was very exciting, and I'm glad my hard work paid off." A three-person team of computer science majors, Amber Gupta, a senior from New Delhi, India; Thien Sn Duong Do, a freshman from Saigon, Vietnam; and David McCoy, a senior from Hendersonville, Tennessee, placed second with their creation of "Diff Pic." Their program is a web browser tool that compares images and shows the difference between versions of an image over time. "It was surprising, but we were incredibly excited to get to go up and demo our app during the awards," McCoy said. "There's so much innovation and so many exciting ideas shown off at a hackathon that you're never sure how your project really looks. So, that's part of the uncertainty. We were happy for the judges and other students to connect with our app and like using it." The Best Duo Hack award was given to two UA students, Kayla Hamilton, a sophomore computer science major from Howell, Michigan, and Mason McVicker, a sophomore electrical engineering major with a computer engineering option from Aurora, Colorado. Their program "Bama-Food-Trucks" allows students to track the food trucks on UA's campus throughout the day. The ACM student hackathon travel team will compete again in November at Vanderbilt's VandyHacks Competition and hopes to continue their successes. "It felt great going to my first hackathon and actually be able to convert an idea to a good app. Thanks to my team, now I am super excited for VandyHacks," Gupta said.

For the second consecutive year, The University of Alabama Magnetics and Antenna team placed in the international Student Antenna Design Contest held by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Antenna and Propagation Society. The UA team, made up of four electrical and computer engineering students, placed second in the international contest July 8-13 in Boston. The UA team was one of six teams selected as finalists to design an antenna system to sound wireless channels and locate radio signals. "It was very thrilling to place for the second year in a row," said Katelyn Isbell, an undergraduate student on the UA Magnetics and Antenna team. "Our team was very proud to be able to represent The University of Alabama academically at an international contest." The objective of this year's competition was to create a portable device that can, in real time, locate a hidden radio transmitter at the frequency of a common Wi-Fi router. Each team submits a final report and video, which contains descriptions and pictures of the designed system, testing results and a list of materials. The next step for the UA Magnetics and Antennas team will be to publish their findings and file for a patent. The team will also prepare for the upcoming year where they will present their work and compete at the 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation with professors and doctoral students rather than other college teams. "[I'm] proud of my students," said Dr. Yang-Ki Hong, E.A. Larry Drummond Endowed Chair of Computer Engineering and departmental graduate program director. "They brought our antenna research activities to the high level of worldwide antenna research." The UA team was composed of Hoyun Won, a graduate student from Incheon, South Korea; Leo Vanderburgh, an undergraduate student from Dayton, Ohio; and Jonathan Platt, an undergraduate student from Lumberton, New Jersey.

For the second consecutive year, a team of engineering students at The University of Alabama is one of six selected as finalists in an international contest to design an antenna system to sound wireless channels and locate radio signals. "We are very fortunate because this is a worldwide competition, so we are very happy our students were one of the top six," said Dr. Yang-Ki Hong, team adviser and the E. A. "Larry" Drummond Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the UA College of Engineering.

For the 2018-2019 competition period, 15 University of Alabama students have been selected for Fulbright Awards. The University of Alabama is a nationally ranked Top Producer of Fulbright Student Award Winners.

A University of Alabama student team -- Alabeama -- recently placed third in the 2018 Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute Big Beam Competition. The objective of the national competition is to design, fabricate and test a precast and prestressed concrete beam to span 20 feet and to support at least 32,000 pounds and fail, or break, before reaching 39,000 pounds. The competition also required a video component to be submitted by each team documenting progress and results. "In most upper level structural design classes, we analyze or design different members for various loading conditions," said Emily Gould, team member and master's student. "But to take it one step further, to get to see the beam actually crack, deflect, and eventually fail as we predicted was an experience I won't forget." The team worked with industry partner Gate Precast in Monroeville, Alabama, to create the beam used in competition that earned them third out of 20 teams nationally. "The competition gave us a unique opportunity to have contact with the design world and the production facility at the same time," said Daniel Valentim, team member and doctoral student from Vitoria, Espirito Santo, Brazil. "It opened my eyes to realize that sometimes what can be easily designed and drawn in the computer can be difficult to be executed in the precast plant." In addition to the hands-on experience gained through this process, the student team will receive $1,500 for the third-place finish. Several UA team members intend to participate in next year's competition. "I was really glad to see that all the effort and time our team put in led us to a good position in the competition," Valentim said. "Even though we came in third place, our team recognizes that we still need to improve, to aim for first place in the next years." In addition to Gould and Valentim, Alabeama consists of two other civil, construction and environmental engineering majors: Sumedh Sharma, doctoral student from Kathmandu, Nepal; and Gabrielle Willis, undergraduate student from Jacksonville, Florida. The team's adviser is Dr. Sriram Aaleti, assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering.

A team of University of Alabama College of Engineering students took home first place in a recent hacking competition where teams came up with a business plan. HackATL was held on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta Nov. 10-12. Approximately 45 teams made up of 200 undergraduate and graduate students, studying subjects including business, graphic design and computer science, participated in the event.

Kaitlyn Krejci, a junior at The University of Alabama from St. Louis, has been chosen to participate in the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship National Student Congress. The Henry Clay Center is an innovative non-profit dedicated to educating a new generation of leaders in negotiation, dialogue and compromise. The Student Congress program is free of cost (travel and lodging included) to those selected from the competitive application process. Current college juniors and high school juniors with records of exceptional academic and extracurricular achievement were chosen for this once-in-a-lifetime academic and personal development course. The college program will be June 11 to June 17. During that week, participants will have the opportunity to meet with lawmakers, academics, journalists, and civic leaders to discuss the practical importance of compromise and constructive engagement and dialogue to resolve conflict and competing interests in a democracy. For more information about the program, or how to contribute, visit: www.henryclaycenter.org or on Twitter @henryclaycenter, Facebook @henryclaycenter, Instagram @henryclaycenter

The Holle Award for Excellence in Public Speaking is awarded to UA's Will Sansoucie, whose persuasive speech on the importance of preparing for retirement displayed excellent talent in speech writing and delivery. The award is accompanied by a $10,000 cash prize. The awards are designed to celebrate and reward student achievement in the areas of creative transformation, filmmaking, media writing, public speaking and screenwriting. The Holle Awards are named for Brig. Gen. Everette Holle, a1950 graduate of The University of Alabama, who served as an announcer, director, writer and producer during his 40-year career at NBC 13.

Three students who have created a comprehensive, online gift profile service recently finished third and won $2,000 to advance their startup company at the Aldag Business Plan Competition at The University of Alabama.

For the 2017-2018 competition period, 14 University of Alabama students have been selected for Fulbright Awards. This year's total sets a record number of awardees for UA in the prestigious international exchange program. Five University of Alabama students and alumni received Fulbright Awards for research and study during the 2017-2018 academic year. Nine 2017 graduates received Fulbright Awards to serve as English teaching assistants overseas for the 2017-2018 academic year.

Three students at The University of Alabama won first prize and $5,000 in the Edward K. Aldag, Jr. Business Plan Competition on March 31. The three students are founders of NeuroPress, which plans to license NASA technology to measure intracranial pressure to better detect and treat concussions, particularly for sports leagues and the military.

A student start-up business at The University of Alabama won the $50,000 grand prize at the Edward K. Aldag, Jr. Business Plan Competition on March 31. Three UA students formed KuLVAX, a start-up company that has created a more efficient cooling process for the transportation of life-saving vaccines, particularly in developing countries that have unreliable access to ice and electricity.

After having been named a top-five finalist in the PRWeek PR Student of the Year in January, Katie Gatti will be traveling to New York in March as a top-two finalist for the award.