By Kaye Bilbao Regalado
The UC’s COSMOS program at UCI is a competitive 4-week summer program built for talented high school students, giving them a college-level educational experience. Students get the chance to conduct independent research, prototype building and testing, and practice with technical communication.
Since 2018, Professor Joel Lanning, in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCI, and Professor Garrett Struckhoff, Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at CSU Fullerton, have been collaborating to provide COSMOS students a hands-on experience that covers the basics of civil and environmental engineering as well as basic building skills.
According to Professor Lanning, one goal of the program is to immerse high school students in a college-level environment, giving them college-level research experience to foster their love for civil and environmental engineering.
“We take the students from sophomore-level college courses in civil engineering, all the way up through senior year courses,” Professor Lanning said. “Little bits and pieces of each thing, to give a student a flavor of what civil engineering is like.”
The CEE Cluster covers the basics of statics, strength of materials, structural design principles, and sketching and drawing. Professor Lanning’s co-instructor, Professor Struckhoff, covers the basics of water resources and water chemistry, and in some years, covers the making of biofuels from algae.
As an instructor, Professor Lanning emphasizes practicality. Students learn about design in concept or in a classroom, but implementing their designs is much more complicated in the real world. It is something that they might not realize until they start their first jobs.
He added: “One primary focus [of the program] is to get students to think about: What does it really mean to try to build something? It’s not simple. It’s hard to build stuff!”
As someone who has had building in his family and blood, he also tries to foster in his students a respect towards people who do construction work for a living. He wants students to see beyond the stereotypes attached to construction work and to see the real immense work and skill that goes into building something an engineer has designed.
“For civil engineers, it’s obviously really important that we understand design. But it’s also important that we understand the viewpoint of the contractors physically doing the construction,” Professor Lanning said. “The better we understand how construction works, and how difficult it is, the better our projects will be, and the better engineers we will be.”
Therefore, one of the most unique parts of this program is the fact that high school students are empowered to wield power tools to bring their visions to life.
Photo caption: UCI COSMOS students in the CEE Cluster using a circular saw and a miter saw — tools rarely mentioned in civil engineering programs, but commonly used in constructing projects they will design as engineers.
“You can see the students’ curiosity at such a young age,” Professor Lanning said. He added, “This year, in particular, I was really impressed with this arch bridge. It was a pretty difficult thing to construct.”
At first, he was doubtful that the students could build such a complicated structure, but he was very impressed by the team’s ingenuity and initiative — qualities that were able to make that challenging project become a success. The arched truss had a pedestrian deck suspended from it, as it spanned between two wood framed mini buildings.
Photo caption: The suspension arch truss bridge was designed and built by a team of 5 high school students. The 15-foot span deflected only 0.25” with a load of 1,000 lbs applied uniformly to the deck.
One of Professor Lanning’s favorite parts of the program is the last day, when students are able to present to their parents what they have built over the course of the program. He describes the awe parents display when seeing their work: Our kid built this?
Photo caption: The CEE UCI COSMOS Cluster in the CEE@UCI SETH Lab (Structural Engineering Testing Hall), after testing concrete cylinders to witness strength increases during the curing process.