Mr. David Mason Receives INCOSE's Outstanding Service Award

Mr. David Mason received an ‘Outstanding Service Award’ at the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) 2015 International Symposium for establishing the concept of INCOSE Student Divisions.

Dr. David Long, President of INCOSE, is pictured presenting the award to Mr. Mason, the INCOSE Assistant Director of Student Divisions.

The citation reads: ‘For his outstanding service in establishing the concept of INCOSE Student Divisions, and his years of dedicated service to the Member Board, the Americas Sector, and the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of INCOSE.'

Mr. Mason began his INCOSE staff position in 2008 with 10 registered students. A presentation at the 2015 INCOSE IW reported to the Academic Matters the number of registered students is over 700 members with 13 university student divisions sponsored by local by INCOSE Chapters.

Mr. Mason has supported the creation of student divisions, University engineering clubs, sponsored by the LA Chapter, Southern Arizona, Central Arizona, New Mexico, and Washington Metro. Presentations of the ‘value propositions’ for all stakeholders has been presented at assorted INCOSE events, internationally in Pretoria and Cape Town South Africa, China, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

Development of a student division is a challenging endeavor at each unique University where the university focus, established curriculum, student population, INCOSE Chapter participation, and the associated international culture are weaved together like a fine woven blanket. The greatest challenge at each student division is sustainability by maintaining the value proposition for all of the 4-Way Benefit Model stakeholders.  These challenges can only be met with the support from local INCOSE members who represent practicing professional systems engineers. 

INCOSE Sponsorship at FIRST Robotics

INCOSE sponsored the ‘Judges’ Dinner’ at the ‘For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)’ final completion for 2014. The dinner was held onApril 24 for 105 judges and 13 special guests. Dinner included recognition and presentations by the founder, Mr. Dean Kamen, and Dr. Woodie Flowers: the National Advisor and Pappalardo Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at MIT (pictured with Mr. Greg Gorman and Mr. David Mason) the day before the finals were completed.  Dinner also included warming and emotional presentations by several FIRST team members whose lives were significantly changed due to their involvement in FIRST.

INCOSE also presented certifications and a flash memory stick with INCOSE materials to the 149 Deans List awardees.

This year’s winning FIRST Robotics Competition alliance included Team 254; The Cheesy Poofs from San Jose, California, Team 469; Las Guerillas from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Team 2848; the Sparks from Dallas, Texas, and Team 74; Team C.H.A.O.S. ,from Holland, Michigan. 
 

This year there were 68,175 students on 2,727 FRC teams, across 17 countries participating in 98 Regional and District competitions before reaching the finals in St. Louis. Over 8,000,000 volunteer hours were recorded amongst the teams mentors, coaches, judges, and parents to reach the finals. 

Each Year these team are provided the ‘challenge’, this year in the form of a video, in the January time frame and enter competitions in just six weeks. Below are just a few examples of the variety of solutions these high school students generated during this short period.  

 

INCOSE SFBAC hopes to sponsor a team within our area. Please contact your Chapter President Rollie Olson or David Mason, Assistant Director for Student Division, INCOSE for more information.

By David Mason, CSEP
INCOSE SFBAC Board Member
INCOSE Assistant Student Division

David Mason's Bio

The International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2014 Summary

The International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) is an annual event sponsored by the Society for Science & the Public, in partnership with the Intel Foundation.  For the last several years, INCOSE has given one of the Special Awards at ISEF to the student project which best reflects the application of systems engineering. Student winners are ninth through twelfth graders who earned the right to compete at the Intel ISEF 2014 by winning a top prize at a local, regional, state or national science fair.

In 2014, ISEF was held in Los Angeles, and the INCOSE team of judges included four INCOSE Fellows (Dorothy McKinney from our SFBAChapter, plus three INCOSE Fellows from the East Coast: Bill Mackey, Chandru Mirchandani, and Jerry Fisher) and five members of the INCOSE Los Angeles Chapter (Dr. Gelys Trancho, David Imbodien, Cate Heneghan, Gina Parodi De Reid, and Michael Dickerson).  The team of judges reviewed the abstracts for several hundred of the over 1600 total projects at the ISEF.  John Walker was kind enough to review the abstracts in advance, and identify the subset for our team of judges to consider, thus making the job of the judges much more manageable.  As they reviewed the projects, our team of judges looked for the following:

• The project involves characterizing, designing, building, modifying and/or testing a clearly identifiable complex system.
• The system’s utility to society should also be clearly apparent.  We are looking for something that can be built; modified, or redesigned to provide an appropriate solution to a societal (stakeholder) need.
• Systems engineering practices should be clearly applied (even if the student does not use systems engineering terminology to describe what they have done).

The winner of the INCOSE award receives $1500, and is invited to the next INCOSE Symposium.  At the Symposium, the winner is given a booth in the exhibitor area, and asked to present his/her project to the Symposium attendees.  Matthew Hileman, the 2014 winner, attended the 2014 INCOSE Symposium together with his mother, and he was recognized in one of the Symposium plenary sessions. 

In addition to selecting the winner of the INCOSE award, the team selects up to 10 honorable mentions.  The INCOSE team of judges also talks to each of the students responsible for the most promising 40 or 50 projects to discuss the goals and value of systems engineering.  Our hope is to inspire these promising students to take an interest in systems engineering as they move forward in their education and their careers.

The winner and honorable mention awardees for 2014 were:

First Award of $1,500
EE093	Cube Satellites: Miniature Satellite Design and Operations for Pulsed Plasma System Applications
	Matthew Hileman, 16, The Classical Academy, College Pathways, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Certificate of Honorable Mention
CS031	Train the Artificial Brain II: Computer-Aided Diagnosis and Treatment Plan of Alzheimer's Disease using Neural Networks
	Roma Vivek Pradhan, 17, Friendswood High School, Friendswood, Texas
CS084	Voice Integrated Development Environment for People Who Are Blind, Myopia Affected or Have RSI
	Diana Marusic, 16, Theoretical Lyceum "Ion Creanga," Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
EE061	Electromagnetic Tire Propulsion System
	Alexander William Beall, 17, Brunswick High School, Brunswick, Maryland
EE082	Development of a Teleoperation Robot
	Mina Fahmi Fahmi, 17, Great Mills High School, Great Mills, Maryland
EN012	The VP (Ventriculoperitoneal) Shunt Circuit
	Jennifer Lauren Cramer, 18, West Linn High School, West Linn, Oregon
ET044	The Cooling of Solar Panels to Increase Power Output
	Christopher Rafael Botello, 15, John Jay High School, San Antonio, Texas
ET045	Optimizing the Utilization of Wind Energy with an Alternative Engineering Design: A Horizontal Dual Motor Turbine, Phase II
	Caid Lunt, 17, Weber High School, Pleasant View, Utah
ET062	Cones, Chutes, and Coils: Novel Proposals to Ebb Wingtip Vortices
	Loren J. Newton, 16, La Sierra High School, Riverside, California
ET065	Rain Power
	Michael Jose Lopez Chiesa, 18, Saint Mary's Ryken High School, Leonardtown, Maryland

By Dorothy McKinney

INCOSE SFBAC Board Member

INCOSE Fellow

Dorothy McKinney’s Bio

Cal Poly Pomona Student Division Kick Off

On April 22, 2014 Dave Mason, INCOSE Assistant Director of Student Division, attended the California Poly Technical University, Pomona (CPP) the kickoff meeting of the newly formed student division. 

The kick off included presentations by Dr. Saeideh Fallah Fini, Assistant Professor at CPP and CPP Student Division Advisor; Mr. Stephen Guine, Vice President INCOSE LA Chapter; Mr. David Mason, Assistant Director INCOSE Student Division, and a variety of CPP INCOSE Officers presenting their involvement and upcoming guest speakers. The meeting was attended by multiple CPP professors and department chairs and more than 85 students in a variety of educational programs. 

The discussion focused on the value propositions the student division of INCOSE offered to the students and covered future opportunities for the student chapter. Dr. Fallah-Fini provided her perspective on the student division and the future programs. 

Mr. Mason presented not only the value of INCOSE membership but also shared an example of projects where SE was utilized as seen in the attached photograph.

More information can be found at: http://cppincose.org/ 

By David Mason, CSEP
INCOSE SFBAC Board Member
INCOSE Assistant Student Division Director
David Mason's Bio