Mechanical Engineering

Students gather on College Green, in front of Benjamin Franklin statue, to unveil an electric racecar.

Penn Electric Racing’s latest racecar

Penn Electric Racing, the student-led Formula Society of Automotive Engineers electric team, debuted its latest electric race car, REVX, on College Green on March 28. This marks the team's 10th custom-designed car since its founding in 2013 and its most sophisticated to date.

3 min. read

A robotic aerial drone on Penn’s Locust Walk.

Flying high with the Penn Aerial Robotics club

For more than a decade, Penn students have been building and competing with unmanned aerial vehicles. They unveil their latest creations, an autonomous drone-like tilt-rotor aircraft and a model plane, before they head to an international competition in Los Angeles this spring.

7 min. read

Kayla Gay looking into a microscope in a lab.

From lab to classroom: The Center for Engineering MechanoBiology

Penn’s Center for Engineering Mechanobiology is a summer program for K-12 teachers in Philadelphia to work with scientists and engineers to develop innovative, hands-on lessons to engage students in STEM-integrated education.

Interesting Engineering

Engineers build 30-feet-long all-glass bridge using 6,000-year-old technique

Masoud Akbarzadeh of the Weitzman School of Design has created a 30-foot-long bridge built entirely of interlocking 16-millimeter hollow glass pieces.

A group of students at Penn in class at a table.

Building tomorrow’s innovators: Penn’s Widjaja Entrepreneurship Fellows Program

The Sugi and Millie Widjaja Engineering Entrepreneurship Fellows Program matches 12 Penn students with mentors to learn what it takes to transform ideas into potential companies.

From drummer to educator: How entrepreneurship transcends disciplines

As a practice professor in the Penn Engineering Entrepreneurship program, Jeffrey Babin is committed to helping students bring ideas from the lab to the marketplace.

Sage Fulco demonstrates the machine the group used to test the materials’ toughness.

How disorder toughens materials

A team of Penn engineers tested disordered materials and finds that without changing the material but simply altering the internal geometry, the mechanical metamaterial can increase toughness.

CNN

What officials are doing—and suggesting—to learn more about the possible drone sightings

Dean Vijay Kumar of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that the main difficulties in detecting and tracking drones stem from their small size, agility, and potential for autonomous operation.

CNN

Why you shouldn’t try to shoot down a suspected drone

Dean Vijay Kumar of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that shooting at potential drones could lead to missed shots, stray bullets, or accidents that result in hazardous outcomes far beyond the intended action.

Newsweek

What New Jersey’s mystery drones could actually be, according to experts

Dean Vijay Kumar of the School of Engineering and Applied believes that mystery drones in New Jersey are part a U.S. government operation rather than being sent by a foreign state actor.

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