Nanci Hellmich

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, experts have been analyzing data sets to try to predict the number of people who will be infected with the virus. Using nationwide statistics for COVID-19, a Mason electrical engineering master’s student tested a computational method to estimate new infections each day.

Imagine a day when canopies of solar panels across campus generate enough electricity to meet all of Mason’s power needs. That’s the dream of seven senior engineering students and faculty advisor Liling Huang, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE).

It’s not often that college students have a chance to solve cybersecurity challenges, delve into data mining, and take a salsa dancing lesson over the same weekend. But those who attended PatriotHacks, Mason’s second annual collegiate hackathon, did just that at the MIX@Fenwick, October 18 to 20.

When Mason Engineering professor Cameron Nowzari was an undergraduate, all he wanted to do was design and build robots. He was especially interested in the idea of swarm robotics, in which large teams of robots are designed to cooperatively complete tasks that a single device might not be able to do alone.

When Kathleen Wage teaches signal processing, she doesn’t stand in front of her students and lecture for the entire period.

Mason’s Rocketry Club captured first place awards in the target altitude event and the Mars rover challenge at the Battle of the Rockets Competition.

Mason Engineering students took a giant leap into complex space-related research this year.

It swims like a fish, turns like a fish, and dives like a fish, but it’s not a fish. It’s a robot. Three Mason Engineering seniors have created a robotic fish that can navigate water through wireless commands.