ENGage LSU logo

2024 ENGage LSU

Wednesday, March 13

Registration for 2024 is now closed.

What does an engineer do? Come get your passport to engineering careers by going around the lab in 180 minutes. Students will tour research labs at LSU in the renovated engineering building (Patrick F. Taylor Hall) and participate in hands-on demonstrations led by professors and undergraduate students.

Topics include:

Bioengineering
Biomedical Engineering
Nanomaterials
Electrochemistry
Clean Energy
Waste Water Treatment

This event is FREE and open to 6th-8th grade classes on a first come, first serve basis. One teacher/chaperone for every 10 students is required; maximum of 40 students per school.

Teachers will receive confirmation e-mail with more information and school agreement form. Must reply to confirm your spot. There will be a waiting list once max capacity is reached.

Demos - 2022

Discipline	Description
Biological Engineering	Predicting Protein Shapes with Artificial Intelligence: Human and animal tissues are composed of several types of proteins that are folded in different shapes. We will use our modeling software, AlphaFold2, to predict the 3D structures of a few of these proteins.
Biological Engineering	Decoding the Code: From DNA to Protein: All living creatures on Earth share the same building blocks of life – DNA. But what does it do? In this demonstration, students will learn how DNA sequences are transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA) and translated into proteins to discover the hidden messages coded into our DNA.
Biological Engineering	From Diapers to Drug Delivery: How Hydrogels Help Us: In this session, students will learn what biological engineers at LSU do and how hydrogels are formed and used in drug delivery.
Civil Engineering	Unstable Structures: What Happens to Bridges as They Age: How safe are our bridges? In this hands-on activity, students will gain an understanding of how aging affects the strength of bridges and how engineers manage bridges weakened by aging.
Civil Engineering	Protecting Buildings and Bridges from Vibrations: Buildings and bridges suffer from large vibrations caused by winds and earthquakes. We can design and install some effective devices to reduce the vibrations to protect buildings and bridges from damage or failure.
Civil Engineering	Building Houses like a Mud Wasp: The Strength is in the Dirt: Mud wasps use dirt to build their strong and durable nests. We will show students how the mud wasps build their nests and how we can utilize their nest-building skills to build our sustainable and resilient houses out of dirt.
Chemical Engineering	Geaux for the Gold: Nanoparticles and Catalysis: What is a nanoparticle and how small are they? We will demonstrate the synthesis of gold nanoparticles in the presence of capping agents, and students will learn what a catalyst is and how they are made.
Chemical Engineering	Crazy Colloids and Mad Magnetic Materials: The activity will demonstrate the unique ability of magnetic fluids containing tiny nanoparticles to 'dance' and 'reconfigure' upon the application of magnetic fields. The students will learn how and why magnetic fluids form these fascinating surface patterns and architectures.
Chemical Engineering	Go Green! Development of Green Fuels Using Computational Methods: Greenhouse gas produced by fossil fuels is the main contributor to global warming and climate change. In this activity, students will observe how our research can play a pivotal role in the development of green fuels.
Chemical Engineering	Waterproof Plants: Hydrophobicity in Nature: Plants have developed unique coatings to keep their leaves clean and helps them to convert light into energy through photosynthesis. In this activity, students will see how plants are able to affect the motion of water in order to clean their leaves and will learn how scientists are using this idea to develop stain resistant clothing.
Chemical Engineering	The Battle between Tumors and Drug Resistance: In this action-packed activity, students will gain an understanding of how engineers develop new technologies to study how cancer cells manipulate the environment to cause healthy cells to turn evil, ultimately helping cancer.
Chemical Engineering	Engineering DNA for New Functions: In this illustration and hands-on integrated activity, students will be introduced to the concept of DNA, gene expression, and DNA origami. They will also design and build their own simple DNA construct with the toy model kit provided.
Electrical Engineering	Helping Doctors “See” Cancers in Surgery with Invisible Light: Surgeons often can not remove all cancerous tissues, resulting in cancer recurrence a few years later. Learn how this magic invisible dye and near-infrared imaging systems help surgeons to better identify and remove tiny tumors.
Mechanical/ Industrial Engineering	Robots that can draw: In this demonstration, students will gain an understanding on how engineering students enable robots to become artists, making robotic manipulators capable of reproducing paintings, creating live portraits, and producing 3D prints.
Mechanical/ Industrial Engineering	Making Soft, Snake-like Robots: In this activity, students will learn how robots inspired by snakes, octopus tentacles, and elephant trunks are helping in surgery, inspection, and other challenging tasks for traditional robots. Students will also get to assemble their own prototype!

Demos - 2021 (virtual)

Discipline	Description
Biological Engineering	Engineering organs for transplantation: In this demonstration, we will show students how to engineer organs from biomaterials and stem cells. Students will also learn how we can make a custom-built heart.
Biological Engineering	From Diapers to Drug Delivery: How Hydrogels Help Us: Learn how researchers use hydrogels to deliver medicine throughout your body through fun hands-on activities. Students will get an overview of what Biological Engineering is at LSU and get to create a hydrogel while discussing biomedical applications of drug delivery.
Civil Engineering	Aging Bridges: How long do bridges last? Each group will get two different models of K'Nex bridges: one that simulates a new bridge and the other that simulates an aging bridge. In this activity students will compare the performance of these two bridges to better understand how bridges work and how they are affected by deterioration due to aging.
Civil Engineering	Resonance and protection of buildings: All buildings have resonance, which is the amount of time it takes for the building to vibrate back and forth when a force has been acted upon it. This demonstration will help students understand the principle of resonance in buildings under winds and earthquakes. Also, students will learn what engineers do to protect buildings from damage or collapse.
Civil Engineering	How do mud wasp build a strong nest out of dirt?: Mud wasps (also called mud daubers or dirt daubers) use dirt to build their strong and durable nests. We will show students how the mud wasps build their nests using dirt. We will also discuss how we can utilize their nest-building skills to build sustainable and resilient houses out of dirt.
Chemical Engineering	Energy technologies for a sustainable future: In this demonstration, students will learn about the current energy landscape and a future powered on renewable energy. Central to realizing this future is hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen fuel generated from solar power and water. These vehicles do not use fossil fuels and have no greenhouse gas emission. Fuel cell toy cars powered on hydrogen from water electrolysis and solar cells will be demonstrated.
Chemical Engineering	Cracking the cancer code: A tumor is a complex environment consisting of multiples types of cells that can influence each other’s behavior. Cancer cells are bullies that can trick healthy cells into doing bad things and helping the tumor to grow. In this activity, students will assume the role of engineer/doctor/detective to decode messages sent from either cancer cells or healthy cells to learn how cancer corrupts its neighbors.
Chemical Engineering	Dancing with magnetic stars: This online demonstration will showcase the fun properties of electromagnets and magnetic liquids. The students will learn the composition of magnetic liquids and why magnetic liquids respond to magnetic fields. Students will also learn how to make magnetic spikes (stars) appear, disappear, and dance using an electromagnet.
Chemical Engineering	Engineering DNA for New Functionality: DNA stores genetic information in nucleotides. Using the base-pair rule, researchers can now design genetic devices to deliver new functions for advanced computing and materials. In this demonstration, students will be introduced to simple gene expression regulators and DNA origami.
Chemical Engineering	Waterproof Plants: Hydrophobicity in Nature: Plants have developed unique coatings to keep their leaves clean. This helps plants to convert light into energy through photosynthesis. In this activity, students will see how plants are able to affect the motion of water in order to clean their leaves and will learn how scientists are using this idea to develop stain resistant clothing.
Electrical Engineering	Help Doctors to “See” Cancers in Surgery with Invisible Light: When a person undergoes surgery to remove a tumor, the surgeon often cannot remove all cancerous tissues. This can result in a recurrence of the cancer a few years later. Learn how a magic invisible dye can assist near-infrared imaging systems to help surgeons to better identify and remove tiny tumors.
Environmental Engineering	Using hydrogel beads to harvest salinity gradient energy from seawater and river water: Hydrogel beads absorb fresh water (like from a river), but release water in salty conditions (like from the ocean). The swelling and shrinking of hydrogel beads in river water compared to seawater can be used to harvest energy, called salinity gradient energy. In this hands-on activity, students will visually observe the swelling and shrinking of hydrogel beads in tap water and salty water.
Environmental Engineering	Visualizing Liquid Density and Measuring Water Quality Using Light and Color: In this activity, students will assemble a density tower of different liquids, each with a unique color in order to learn two important things about water quality and water treatment. The density of water changes with temperature and with saltiness. It is important to know how dense water is before we try to clean it! We will also use laser pens to see how scientists use light to measure contaminants in water. We will learn about two ways that scientists use photo-chemistry to keep our water clean.
Mechanical/ Industrial Engineering	Performing titration on Paper Microfluidics: Our lab makes devices out of patterned paper to conduct chemical tests that use only small drops of liquid--this is called microfluidics. In this demonstration, we will perform titration experiments on paper with and without microfluidic channels so that students will understand the principles of paper microfluidics.
Mechanical/ Industrial Engineering	Building tiny robots: Students will be introduced to the field of robotics, specifically in the mechanical design of robots. In this activity, students will build a robot that is simple to operate, very tiny, and will buzz around like a bug. No robotics experience needed for this fun activity!
Mechanical/ Industrial Engineering	Designing Lightweight, Yet Strong, Composite Materials: What are composite materials and where are they used? In this activity, students will learn about different types of composite materials and how their layering affects mechanical properties. Students will create their own design for a strong, but lightweight, composite.

Demos - 2019

Discipline	Description
Biological Engineering	From Diapers to Drug Delivery - How Hydrogels Help Us: In this activity, students will learn about biocompatibility, biologically engineered materials, hydrogen bonds, and hydrogels. We will observe the change in hydrogen bonds when soap is added to water, then create a hydrogel from the material found in diapers.
Biological Engineering	Decoding the Code - From DNA to Proteins: All living creatures on Earth share the same building blocks of life – DNA. But what does it do? In this demonstration, students will learn how DNA sequences are translated into proteins to discover the hidden messages coded into our DNA.
Biological Engineering	The Battle between Tumors and Drug Resistance: In this action-packed activity, students will gain an understanding of how individual components of cancer can increase the severity of this disease.
Biological Engineering	Building your Best Matrix: Human and animal tissues are composed of cells and several types of proteins. Such proteins are organized in a specific manner to interact with cells. We will show a model cell-matrix structure, and students will construct their own models of a matrix.
Chemical Engineering	Geaux for the Gold: Making Metal Nanoparticles for Chemical Reactions: What is a nanoparticle and how small are they? Students will see a how gold and silver nanoparticles are made and how they can be used in chemical reactions.
Chemical Engineering	Crazy Colloids & Mad Magnetic Materials: The activity will unravel the world of "small" colloidal particles, and how they exist in nature, hidden from our eyesight. Students will see how properties of liquid containing these particles change when magnetic fields are applied.
Chemical Engineering	Waterproof Plants: Hydrophobicity in Nature: Plants have developed unique coatings to keep their leaves clean. This helps plants to convert light into energy through photosynthesis. In this activity, students will see how plants are able to affect the motion of water in order to clean their leaves and will learn how scientists are using this idea to develop stain resistant clothing.
Chemical Engineering	The Art of Connecting Small Molecules into "Super Strong" Polymers: What are polymers and how are they used? Students will observe and have hands-on experience on the preparation of standard and advanced polymers with remarkable mechanical properties.
Chemical Engineering	Constructing Cancer Catchers: In this activity, students will learn how researchers can use chemical engineering principles to build new devices that help doctors treat and diagnose cancer. Blood cells and cancer cells will be represented by a mixture of rice and pasta. Students will create their own designs with the goal of separating the different "cells" from each other.
Construction Management	LSU's BIM Cave: Using 3D Visual Models to Manage Information: 3D models help us to better understand how the different components of a building work together and help researchers design smart cities. Students will see LSU's BIM Cave and learn how construction managers design models to help designers, constructors, and facility managers more easily manage information about buildings by automating complicated processes.
Electrical Engineering	Helping Surgeons Find and Remove "Tiny Tumors": Cancerous tumors can be hard to find and can be hard to remove completely through surgery. In the US, 40% of cancer patients who have surgery end up having the cancer come back within 5 years. Learn how spectroscopic near-infrared imaging devices help surgeons to better identify and remove these tiny tumors.
Environmental Engineering	Photo-bleaching: Using the Sun to Purify Water: Sunlight causes many chemical reactions in the environment. Environmental Engineers often use the same types of chemistry for water treatment to produce clean water. We will perform a simple experiment to show how we can use photochemistry to destroy chemicals in water. We will use food coloring so we can see it happen in real time.
Environmental Engineering	Making Currents with Currents: Producing Electricity Using Water: Seawater and river water have different salt concentrations, and we can use them to produce electricity. We will show students how to produce electricity using seawater and river water with battery systems.
Mechanical Engineering	Lab on a Piece of Paper: Using Microfluidics to Test Properties of Liquids: Our lab makes devices out of patterned paper to conduct chemical tests that use only small drops of liquid--this is called microfluidics. Students will do their own titration experiment using these small pieces of paper.
Petroleum Engineering	How Do We Produce Heavy Oil? Heavy oils differ from light oils (such as gasoline we put in our cars, or oil we use for cooking) by their weight and stickiness. They do not flow in their original reservoir conditions underground. In this demonstration, we will see how we produce these oils by heating them. We will also see how we differentiate light oils from heavy, by viewing them under UV light—they glow!

Demos - 2018

Discipline	Description
Biological Engineering	Making Hydrogels: Students will learn about LSU's Biological & Agricultural Engineering Department and do hands-on activities to demonstrate forming and breaking hydrogen bonds.
Biological Engineering	Tumor Microenvironment and Drug Resistance: Students will participate in a tug of war to understand and identify individual components of cancer that enhance disease severity such as drug resistance.
Biological Engineering	Cell's Neighbor - The Extracellular Matrix (ECM): Human and animal tissue is composed of cells and a number of proteins. Such proteins are organized in a specific manner to interact with cells. Students will see a model cell-matrix structure and will make their own model of a matrix.
Chemical Engineering	Natural-gas Conversion: During this demonstration, we will briefly introduce the concept of natural-gas conversion. Students will get to see some advanced synthetic equipment and a catalytic reactor.
Chemical Engineering	Confused Colloids & Mad Magnetic Materials: Particles which are 1,000 times smaller than human hair perform confused random motion. This random motion can be changed by electric and magnetic forces. Here we show how to form self-changing patterns and designs of the particles at liquid surfaces by applying invisible magnetic fields.
Chemical Engineering	Self-Cleaning Surfaces by Mimicking Nature: Plants have developed unique coatings for self-cleaning to better convert light into energy. In this activity, we will discuss how plants are able to dictate the motion of water in order to clean their leaves and how scientists are using these approaches for stain resistant clothing.
Chemical Engineering	Wonderful World of Polymers for Clean Energy and Water: Polymer are ubiquitous and have transformed the world as we know it. In this demonstration, students will see how polymers are central to powering fuel cell toy cars and removing organic dyes from water. Some students will also make their own nylon polymer using simple wet-chemistry techniques.
Chemical Engineering	Counting Cancer Cells: How can engineers help doctors diagnose and treat patients suffering from cancer? A major challenge is the fact that no two cancers act the same, so a drug might work for one patient but not another. In this demo we are going to talk about how to find rare cancer cells using microfluidic devices that trap and detect single cells.
Construction Management	Building Information Modeling for Virtual Design and Construction: 3D models help us to better understand the world around us. Learn how construction managers design 3D models to help building designers, constructors, and facility managers more easily manage information about buildings by automating complicated processes.
Electrical Engineering	Biomedical Instrumentation for Image-guided Cancer Surgery: In the US, 40% of patients who have surgery to remove cancer have recurrence within 5 years due to the failure to detect all the cancer tissues. Learn how spectroscopic near-infrared (NIR) imaging devices help surgeons to better identify tumor margins and small nodules in minimally invasive surgeries (MIS).
Electrical Engineering	Self-folding Structures Based on Shrinky-Dinks: Self-folding or micro-origami technologies are actively investigated as a novel manufacturing process to fabricate three-dimensional macro/micro-structures. In this demonstration, laser-engraved Shrinky-Dinks will be used to show the physical principles behind self-folding.
Environmental Engineering	Granular Filtration and Adsorption: Simple but Important Water Treatment Technologies: Water treatment plants use advanced technology to provide clean drinking water, but sometimes the best technologies are the simplest ones. We will look at how simple materials like sand and charcoal pieces can help clean dirty water and talk about what sand filtration and absorption CAN remove versus what they CANNOT remove.
Environmental Engineering	Producing Electricity Using Seawater and River Water: Seawater and river water have different salt concentrations. We can use them to produce electricity. Here we will show how to produce electricity using seawater and river water with battery systems.
Mechanical Engineering	Lab on Paper: Making of Paper Microfluidics: Diagnosis is the first step in treating any disease, but how can we make a diagnostic device in an inexpensive way without requiring trained personnel? We will show how very small amounts of fluid can complete a chemical reaction to diagnose disease using microfluidic devices made of patterned paper.

Demos - 2017

Discipline	Description
Biological Engineering	3D Bioprinting - Chocolate Demonstration: From this demonstration, we will explain how 3D bioprinting (3DBP) is different from 3D printing. In particular, 3DBP enables to provide complex patterns of vasculature and tissue architecture. In today’s demonstration, we will use a widely available mixture as a bioink to produce fun structures, CHOCOLATE.
Biological Engineering	Biological Engineering Department – Forming Bonds: I will be talking about the LSU Biological Engineering Department and doing hands on activities to display forming and breaking hydrogen bonds
Chemical Engineering	The unbreakable intravenous (IV) fluid bag: the miracles of plasticizers: In this activity, students will learn how plasticizers alter the mechanical properties (e.g., flexibility) of polymers. Students will examine a plasticized poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) intravenous (IV) fluid bag and a PVC pipe. The students will get to jump on, kick, throw, and use a hammer against the plasticized PVC bag to see if they can break it (note (do not include in program description): I have never seen a kid break the bag, but the worst that could happen is that 1 wt% sodium chloride solution will pour on the floor). Conversely, student helpers will show that the same polymer, as a pipe, can easily be broken with a hammer. The activity will explains why plasticizers, at the molecular level, alter the mechanical properties of the plastic. The concept of Young's modulus, a mechanical property of the plastic, will be explained through the analogy of a slope of a line - an algebraic principle.
Chemical Engineering	Confused Colloids & Mad Magnetic Materials: Particles which are 1,000 times smaller than human hair perform confused random motion. This random motion can be changed by electric and magnetic forces. Here we show how to form self-changing patterns and designs of the particles at liquid surfaces by applying invisible magnetic fields.
Chemical Engineering	Self-Cleaning Surfaces by Mimicking Nature: Nature has evolved to create natural mechanisms for preservation. Specifically, plants have been able to develop unique coatings that allow for self-cleaning to ensure their ability to convert light into energy. In this activity we will discuss how plants are able to dictate the motion of water in order to clean their leaves and how scientists are using these approaches for stain resistant clothing.
Chemical Engineering	Natural-gas conversion: During the demonstration, we will briefly introduce the concept of natural-gas conversion. Some advanced synthetic equipment and a catalytic reactor will be shown to the students.
Chemical Engineering	Counting Cancer Cells: For this activity we will demonstrate how engineers can help doctors diagnose and treat patients suffering from cancer. A major challenge in the treatment of cancer patients is the fact that no two cancers act the same which results in situations where a drug will work for one patient but not another. Here we will demonstrate how our lab generate microfluidic devices that are capable of trapping and detecting single cancer cells in an effort to help doctors come up with personalized treatment plans for cancer patients.
Electrical Engineering	Self-folding structure based on Shrinky-Dinks: Self-folding or micro-origami technologies are actively investigated as a novel manufacturing process to fabricate three-dimensional macro/micro-structures. In this class, a self-folding structure, based on a laser-engraved Shrinky-Dinks will be presented and the physical principles behind self-folding will be discussed.
Electrical Engineering	Biomedical Instrumentation for Image-guided Cancer Surgery: Nowadays even in the Western world, cancer occurs to one out of every 2 men and one out of every 3 women in their lifetime. A limitation in cancer surgery is the inability to remove all existing tumor, either because the tumor invades critical structures or because the tumor removal is incomplete without recognition by the operating team at the time of surgery. For all tumor types, local recurrence rates approach 40% following tumor resection within five years of resection. My research interest is the innovative biomedical instrumentation for clinical applications, i. e., to help surgeons to delineate cancer margins, identify satellite tumors, detect micrometastases, and determine if the tumors are completely resected. I design and optimize biomedical imaging devices for real-time and sensitive cancer identification in the image-guided cancer surgery.
Environmental Engineering	Rapid Sand Filtration: a Simple but Important Water Treatment Technology: Water treatment plants use some advanced technology to ensure clean drinking water, but sometimes the best technologies are the simplest ones. We will take a look at how simple materials like sand or charcoal pieces can help remove small particles from dirty water. We will talk about how the sand filtration actually works and think about what it CAN remove versus what it CANNOT remove from dirty water.
Mechanical Engineering	Will Supercapacitors Ever Replace Batteries? In this activity, students will be introduced to common storage devices from batteries to capacitors. After knowing the limitations and characteristics of each one, they will understand the reason we need new energy storage devices. Furthermore, they will see two novel methods of producing graphene based supercapacitors by laser and flash.

Program Statistics

ENGage LSU Program Statistics: 2017-2019

ENGage LSU is a yearly event founded in 2017 and held in March/April during LSU’s spring break. The event was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was offered in a fully virtual format in 2021.
Data were aggregated for all in-person events—years 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2022.
531 middle school students have attended this event over these 4 years.
Participating students were given a pre-survey at the beginning of the event and a post-survey afterwards to see what they learned and if their opinions changed about engineering. Results from 462 collected surveys over the past 4 years show:

32% of students increased their level of interest in engineering

41% of students increased confidence in their ability to become an engineer

41% of students increased their desire to work as an engineer

Students learn at least one new field of engineering (Table 1)

Students increase their knowledge of what engineers do (Table 2)

Table 1. Participants were asked to list as many different types of engineering as they could. The percent increase between pre- and post-survey is included for each field below. The most common answers in the pre-survey were mechanical, chemical, and electrical engineering, but the biggest increase in response was in biomedical/biological engineering. This was due to the large presence of biological engineering activities during ENGage LSU.

Type of Engineering	Pre %	Post %	Difference
Biomedical/Biological	20%	46%	26%
Mechanical/Aerospace	47%	55%	8%
Civil	17%	25%	8%
Environmental	4%	12%	8%
Chemical	39%	44%	5%
Industrial	4%	5%	1%
Petroleum	4%	5%	1%
Computer	15%	14%	-1%
Electrical	28%	28%	-3%

Table 2. The surveys also included a list of activities, where students are instructed to check each item that they think engineers do. The largest increases in responses were directly tied to specific demonstrations occurring during ENGage LSU in different years, such as helping doctors diagnose and treat patients with cancer, working with things smaller than a human hair, and studying properties and structure of DNA, proteins, and cells.

Activity	Pre%	Post%	Difference
Help doctors diagnose and treat patients with cancer	33%	88%	55%
Work with things smaller than a human hair/discover nanoparticles	42%	85%	43%
Study properties and structure of DNA, proteins, and cells from plants and animals	50%	91%	42%
Investigate the features of animals and plants to create new products	42%	82%	40%
Clean up oil spills	24%	61%	37%
Study the properties of plastic/develop processes to make new chemicals	51%	85%	34%
Design systems to treat drinking water	55%	88%	33%
Drill for oil underground	42%	73%	31%
Make devices and materials to learn more about the human body/build new internal organs	49%	79%	30%
Make sure that packages from Amazon and other places arrive on time	20%	43%	23%
Develop 3D models of objects/use computer programs to view objects in 3D	74%	93%	19%
Develop green fuels to combat climate change	58%	77%	18%
Build roads and bridges/determine how buildings and bridges are damaged	70%	88%	18%
Invent machines to do things in new ways/new technologies to help people	74%	92%	18%
Learn how to use different materials to make better houses	68%	84%	17%
Improve the function of batteries and electronics	71%	84%	14%
Create robots that can perform unusual tasks	82%	95%	13%
Build devices to produce electricity from water	86%	97%	10%
Design cars, airplanes, robots, and/or rockets	86%	94%	8%