Florida Sigma Omicron

Twenty-five honor students, under the leadership of the Mechanical Engineering Department Chairman, Dr. Robert B. Gaither and Professor Joel S. Gilbert, petitioned Pi Tau Sigma for membership on January 31, 1968. Florida Sigma Omicron was installed on May, 1968, by a team of National Officers, headed by Mr. E. K. Springer, the National President.

Sigma Omicron Chapter participates in the annual Engineers' Fair, maintains the reading room in the Mechanical Engineering Building, and sponsors social functions jointly with ASME. In addition the chapter is currently updating old, and initiating new experiments for the undergraduate thermodynamics laboratories.

ANNUAL SUMMARY REPORTS

2022-2023, Kierstin Smith, President

The Florida Sigma Omicron chapter takes great pride in offering a variety of service and social
events to enhance our community. Despite the challenges we faced with the continuing
ramifications from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Florida Sigma Omicron chapter initiated 5 new
members during the 2022-2023 school year. To help accommodate all the initiates, we decided to
hold the Fall 2022 initiation on Zoom, before transitioning into an in-person environment in
Spring 2023.

Each semester we have 2-3 service events to help keep Florida Sigma Omicron an active
member of the community. We held an event at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens, which is local to
the Gainesville community, where we helped to remove invasive plant species to help maintain
the beauty in our local community.

In addition, we help the University of Florida’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Department when they hold events for the students and visiting alumni and sponsors. This year,
we helped give introduction to mechanical and aerospace engineering tours to first-year
engineering students to show them the various MAE labs. Additionally, we helped with
check-ins and award presentations at the MAE department’s annual banquet and the new MAE
alumni jacketing ceremony.

Each semester is also filled with 5-6 socials for the initiates and active members to attend and
meet one another. After the first info session, we held some virtual game nights where we
played trivia with fun engineering facts amongst other facts. We also held socials where we
played Pictionary and other online games. We also held in-person social events including an ice
cream social at Jeremiah’s Italian Ice. These events were a great opportunity for the officers,
active members, and initiates to meet in person and online, as many of us had never gotten the
chance to meet each other before.

Lastly, we held our annual MAE polo sale, which is our main fundraiser and is always popular
among MAE students. We also continued hosting our annual poster session with the MAE
graduate student council. The symposium allowed for undergraduate and graduate students in the
department to showcase their research to their peers, faculty members, industry professionals,
and alumni. This also provided a good networking opportunity for our members and those
showcasing their posters. Our president and vice-president also got to attend the PTS National
Convention in Auburn at the University of Auburn which provided the opportunity to network
with members from other chapters! It also provided the opportunity to have great discussions
with the advisory board and other chapter officers about how to improve initiate engagement and
offered new service and social event ideas.

The events and services Florida Sigma Omicron performed just highlight some of our service
events throughout the year. Each year we are always in effort to find new ways to serve the
Gainesville and University of Florida community and hope to be able to return to more in-person
events in the coming year!

2021-2022 Mikayla Lamb, President

Despite the challenges we faced with the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, the Florida Sigma Omicron chapter initiated 6 new members during the 2021-2022 school year. To help accommodate all the initiates, we decided to hold the Fall 2021 initiation on Zoom, before transitioning into a more in-person environment in Spring 2022. While there were not any new initiates in Spring 2022, we continued to hold events for the current active members on campus.

Each semester we have 2-3 service events to help keep Florida Sigma Omicron an active member of the community. This was difficult to implement due to the lack of in-person activities, but we were able to assist in a virtual version of Gator—TRAX, which is an outreach program we help participate in. We helped build rollercoaster kits containing halved insulation tubing, marbles, and tape that were distributed to the children’s family before holding the event on Zoom. Then, we split the children into smaller groups using breakout rooms and helped guide them in building their rollercoaster by explaining the concepts of potential and kinetic energy. This event is also typically held in person; however, the children and volunteers both still enjoyed it despite its virtual environment.

In addition, we help the University of Florida’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department when they hold events for the students and visiting alumni and sponsors. This year, we helped give tours to prospective students and their families, ushered an alumni and donor event at the department’s building dedication, and helped with check-ins and award presentations at the MAE department’s annual banquet.

Each semester is also filled with 5-6 socials for the initiates and active members to attend and meet one another.  After the first info session, we held some virtual game nights where we played trivia with questions based on the University of Florida’s history and fun engineering facts. We also played Pictionary utilizing the whiteboard feature on Zoom. We also held in-person social events including, a pizza dinner at Blaze and an ice cream social at Yogurtology These events were a great opportunity for the officers, active members, and initiates to meet in person, as many of us had never gotten the chance to meet each other before.

Lastly, we held our annual MAE polo sale, which hit records sales, and brought back the annual poster session. The symposium allowed for undergraduate and graduate students in the department to showcase their research to their peers and faculty members. Our president and treasurer also got attended the PTS National Convention in Chicago at UIC and got to network with members from other chapters!

The events and services Florida Sigma Omicron performed just highlight some of our service events throughout the year. Each year we are always in effort to find new ways to serve the Gainesville and University of Florida community and hope to be able to return to more in-person events in the coming year!

Initiate class for Fall 2021. Also shown is officers and the chapter advisor.

Officers at elections held in Spring 2022.

2020-2021 Mikayla Lamb, President

Despite the challenges we faced with an online environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Florida Sigma Omicron chapter initiated 14 new members during the 2020-2021 school year. To help accommodate all the initiates, we held a total of 3 virtual initiations: 2 in the fall (as we held a make-up initiation) and 1 in the spring.

Each semester we have 2-3 service events to help keep Florida Sigma Omicron an active member of the community. This was difficult to implement due to the lack of in-person activities, but we were able to assist in a virtual version of Gator—TRAX, which is an outreach program we help participate in. We helped build rollercoaster kits containing halved insulation tubing, marbles, and tape that were distributed to the children’s family before holding the event on Zoom. Then, we split the children into smaller groups using breakout rooms and helped guide them in building their rollercoaster by explaining the concepts of potential and kinetic energy. This event is also typically held in person; however, the children and volunteers both still enjoyed it despite its virtual environment.

The Florida Sigma Omicron chapter tries to tour multiple companies or labs each semester. This year, we held a virtual tour of our chapter advisor’s (Dr. Hitomi Greenslet’s) Non-Traditional Manufacturing Lab, where a few of the officers work as research assistants. They volunteered to explain the lab’s processing principle and to demonstrate their experiments. We learned about the surface finishing and polishing processes they use to polish complex surface geometries, superalloys, and laser glass. This event was successful, as the initiates enjoyed being exposed to a research environment and one of them joined the lab as well!

Each semester is also filled with 5-6 socials for the initiates and active members to attend and meet one another.  After the first info session, we held some virtual game nights where we played trivia with questions based on the University of Florida’s history and fun engineering facts. We also played Pictionary utilizing the whiteboard feature on Zoom. In the Spring semester, we were able to hold more socially distanced social events as people began to get vaccinated. These included a picnic at one of the local parks with pizza and soda and a frozen custard night at Sweetberries. These events were a great opportunity for the officers and initiates to meet in person, as many of us had never gotten the chance to meet each other before.

The events and services Florida Sigma Omicron performed just highlight some of our service events throughout the year. Each year we are always in effort to find new ways to serve the Gainesville and University of Florida community and hope to be able to return to more in-person events in the coming year!

Initiate class for Fall 2020. Also shown is officers and the chapter advisor.

 

Make-up initiation for Fall 2020 with initiate, chapter president, and chapter vice president.

 

Initiate class for Spring 2021 with officers and chapter advisor.

 

2019 - 2020

The Florida Sigma Omicron chapter of Pi Tau Sigma takes great pride in performing service events and activities. Throughout the year we hold 4-5 service events to better the UF campus, students, Gainesville area, and more. Along with service, we also help out the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Florida, by teaching their section of our Intro to Engineering class.

Each year the Florida Sigma Omicron chapter engages in many service events. In the past year we had three main highlight events. The first was our Gatortrax event. At Gatortrax, elementary students are brought to UF on a Saturday morning and we teach them a mechanical engineering principle. This past year we taught them about conservation of energy; using marbles rolling down a foam track. We also had an interactive discussion with the students to talk about all of the different things that engineers are capable of doing. This was an engaging experience for a lot of the students because it opened their eyes and expanded their minds into all the incredible things that they could do if they went into engineering. These events are made fun and interactive and get children engaged in science and in math. Our other main event was volunteering at the Alachua County Humane Society. We went a couple times in the Fall 2019 and Spring 2020 semesters. Initiates and active members both really enjoyed taking some time off from studying and giving back to their community by helping clean up the living areas of the animals as well as playing with the dogs and cats. A handful of initiates said that they were going to continue volunteering at the Humane Society on their own time because they enjoyed it so much.

One of the main ways Florida Sigma Omicron serves the department and profession is by leading the Intro to Engineering class at UF. This class is available to freshman who are unsure what profession of engineering they want to study. Each week they go around to the different majors and receive a presentation about that respective major. When they come to the mechanical department we send a representative from PTS to teach that day. The PTS member goes over the powerpoint for the students, talks about classes, design teams, and other student involvement. Then we take the students on a small tour and walk them through our Rapid Prototyping Lab (3D printing) and our Design and Manufacturing lab. The Design and Manufacturing lab really spurs students’ interest as they see all the heavy machinery they will be able to work on. With PTS officers teaching the class it saves the mechanical department at UF a lot of hassle.

The aforementioned events and services Florida Sigma Omicron performed just highlight some of our service events throughout the year. Each year we are always in effort to find new ways to serve the Gainesville and University of Florida community!

2018 - 2019 

The Florida Sigma Omicron chapter of Pi Tau Sigma takes great pride in performing service events and activities. Throughout the year we hold 4-5 service events to better the UF campus, students, Gainesville area, and more. Along with service, we also help out  the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Florida, by teaching their section of our Intro to Engineering class.

Each year the Florida Sigma Omicron chapter engages in many service events. In the past year we had three main highlight events. The first was our Gatortrax event. At Gatortrax, elementary students are brought to UF on a Saturday morning and we teach them a mechanical engineering principle. This past year we taught they about conservation of energy; using marbles rolling down a foam track. These events are made fun and interactive and get children engaged in science in math. Our two other main events were trash cleanup days. The first was in Fall 2018 we attended a Campus Beautification Day at UF. During this event we got down and dirty and picked up countless bags of trash on UF’s campus. We raided a large forested section of UF and picked up trash for hours. At the end, the change was unbelievable. The third main event was similar to the second. This time, however, we partook in the Keep Alachua County Beautiful Day. For this event we were assigned a street in Gainesville and picked up trash along that road. Similar to UF’s cleanup day we picked up multiple bags of trash over hours. After being thanked by local neighbors, we gathered the trash, admired the difference in appearance, and took the bags to the local dump.

One of the main ways Florida Sigma Omicron serves the department and profession is by leading the Intro to Engineering class at UF. This class is available to freshman who are unsure what profession of engineering they want to study. Each week they go around to the different majors and receive a presentation about that respective major. When they come to the mechanical department we send a representative from PTS to teach that day. The PTS member goes over the Powerpoint for the students, talks about classes, design teams, and other student involvement. Then we take the students on a small tour and walk them through our Rapid Prototyping Lab (3D printing) and our Design and Manufacturing lab. The Design and Manufacturing lab really spurs students’ interest as they see all the heavy machinery they will be able to work on. With PTS officers teaching the class it saves the mechanical department at UF a lot of hassle.

The aforementioned events and services Florida Sigma Omicron performed just highlight some of our service events throughout the year. Each year we are always in effort to find new ways to serve the Gainesville and University of Florida community!

2017-2018

This year brought new and old faces out in Florida Sigma Omicron. During our year’s activities we had many members that initiated in previous semesters continue their involvement by attending our tour of E-one, our famous Gators’ Dockside Trivia night and other events. One of our graduate members even decided to become an officer after being initiated the previous year as an undergraduate. We pride ourselves in hosting events that keep non-officer members active after initiation. On the topic of initiating we initiated twelve members this year, seven in the fall and five in the spring. During the spring we initiated graduate students for the first time. Three masters’ students became members, two of which are now officers. One of our new members from the fall, Nick, was voted social chair. In Nick’s speech he said ‘I didn’t plan on joining this club I figured I’d just check it out and get free food. But, I really enjoyed the people and now want to make the club better’ He is now the next year’s president. We believe our involved initiation requirements list gets us members like Nick.

This year we stepped outside of comfort zone by hosting and partaking in many new events. We organized a student speaker panel with speakers from the society of women engineers and the society of automotive engineers for an international manufacturing conference with 65 guests in Gainesville. We hosted an ANSYS training event free to all students that over 50 people attended. Our social chair organized a student speaker panel to talk to underclassmen in their orientation class of 150 about mechanical engineering applied to the fields of healthcare, security, energy, and food. On top of these three events we participated in the Out Of the Darkness walk for the first time where we raised $280 of support. This is a walk to promote mental well health and prevent suicide that hundreds of students attend. It is a topic dear to our officers so it was nice to be open about struggles of mental health through our club activities. For fun four of us volunteered at a monkey sanctuary to do non-engineering work.

Apart from our new activities and our participation of members we did our normal events such as our yearly undergraduate research symposium that had 8 different posters on topics in mechanical and aerospace engineering (MAE). We taught Introduction to Engineering starting in the summer weekly and sometimes twice weekly. This is where we teach 20 underclassmen students about mechanical and aerospace engineering as well as the benefits to student involvement. We also did our annual clean-up of the MAE student lounge and conference room with over 7 members cleaning. Lastly in show of appreciation for all our members do we won four awards at our annual department banquet. Two awards for outstanding TA to our former president and social chair. As well as outstanding leadership to our President and outstanding senior to our Vice President.