University of Washington

Outreach PacTrans consortium universities offer an abundance of opportunities to undertake in outreach activities. It has been well established that interest in STEM education and careers must be cultivated from a young age. Thus PacTrans utilizes every effort to generate interest in the discipline of transportation engineering among young students. Below are several such activities that we facilitated this year. On April 21 and 22 of this year, the University of Washington, College of Engineering hosted its annual Discovery Days. This two day event features students and faculty from all UW engineering departments sharing their work with thousands of students, teachers, families and the community. Friday hosts elementary- and middle-school aged kids with their chaperones, and Saturday is reserved for high school students and their families. Each year, PacTrans engages this fantastic outreach event in several ways. Firstly, PacTrans hosts a booth under one of the outdoor tents where we do our best to get kids interested in engineering. This year, we introduced kids to critical thinking and problem solving through the game Rush Hour©. Hundreds of kids took turns trying to get the red car out of the traffic jam, and in doing so, increased its mobility! PacTrans' director, Dr. Yinhai Wang, also directs the Smart Transportation Application and Research (STAR) Lab in the civil engineering department at UW. During Discovery Days, several of his lab students hosted in lab demos. PacTrans' PI Don MacKenzie who also has a lab on campus, The Sustainable Transportation Lab, hosted a booth. Several of his graduate students produced interactive demos that strived to show kids the challenges with electric vehicle charging stations and bus only lanes. PacTrans has an ongoing commitment to outreach to expose young people to STEM industries in general and more specifically to transportation engineering. PACTRANS HOST A BOOTH AT UW ENGINEERING DISCOVERY DAYS With the huge domestic shortfalls in interested, engaged, and suitably professionals, one of the most significant tasks of a University Transportation Center is to help cultivate enthusiasm in the transportation engineering field. This happens at all levels from primary school age children all the way up to undergraduate college students. A very effective method of cultivating such interests are to expose young children to the many great accomplishments an engineer can aspire to. For example, each year Oregon State University hosts an undergraduate engineering expo. This projects were on display at Oregon State University's Kelley Engineering Center during the 17th annual Undergraduate OSU UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING EXPO Engineering Expo. The event, which this year was included as revived da Vinci Days festival, gives engineering students a chance to share their senior capstone projects with hundreds of visitors, including local high school students. 30 Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium

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