Priorities:Kettering University Student Priorities
Contents
Kettering Entrepreneur Society & T-Space Community Engagement and Impact
Background
Kettering Entrepreneur Society, or KES as we like to call it, is essentially an incubator space where students, faculty, and even anyone outside the University can come and develop their ideas, host brainstorm sessions, work together, and improve I&E mindsets. Its purpose is "to promote an entrepreneurial culture at Kettering University based on innovation and social values." KES is a great place for mentoring, networking, and funding opportunities. If a member so chooses, he may present proposals for further research or advertisement/marketing of his idea. If the Society accepts the proposals, the member will receive funding to pursue his project further.
The Tinkering Space or "T-Space," was created with the purpose of providing students an area on campus to make their ideas come to life.
Project Pitch Video
UIF Fellow Candidates 2016
UIF Fellow Candidates 2017
Our Priority
We would like to pursue expanding KES' and T-Space's engagement from mostly Kettering Students to more of the community. We are located in Flint, Michigan, and only a few miles away are two other college campuses. We are interested in trying to engage these campuses and involve them in any way whatsoever. Additionally, we are interested in expanding involvement to others in the community. We have found that there are many entrepreneurial minded people in Flint's community, and combining this with some I&E minded students at the other campuses, we could tap into an incredible resource and all collaborate together.
We would also like to effect the mindset of the Kettering students to empower them to see their capabilities in innovation and understand that they could be entrepreneurs.
Open Labs/Maker Space
Background
Aside from designated lab time alloted with each accompanying course, most if not all labs on Kettering University's campus are locked when the lab is not in session. Once in lab, students are often rushing to complete the lab assignment within the alloted lab time in order to end with a satisfactory grade. However, this creates an issue where the student's experience and scope of understanding is limited to the lab assignment. Thus for many students, full comprehension of the course is difficult to achieve, especially if the lab assignment was not designed to simulate different scenarios.
Our Priority
Like a makerspace, we would like to open labs to students. We believe that by offering open labs, we can allow for students to experiment on their own time, allowing for more "bulbs to click" and thus helping them understand the course better. This translates to different perspectives, and individual ideas. It's like giving a child a box of Legos for a Saturday afternoon. Once they understand how to use the equipment, they will then have the opportunity to experiment on their own.
Kettering Entrepreneur Society & T-Space Infrastructure Improvements
Description
Our idea is to try to expand upon current KES & T-Space involvement and to improve upon the current involvement by bettering the current infrastructure. By students using both these resources (KES & T-Space), I&E would largely increase around campus. One aspect we are interested in is how many students in KES use the T-Space and vice versa; how many T-Space users are active in KES. If we find that there is a large overlap, then we would be interested in investigating the idea of hosting KES meetings in the T-Space. This would allow for us to "tinker" with projects and show them off at the same time. If there is not a large overlap, then we are interested in sponsoring students to create an LED advertisement board for KES that we can display in a window for the students and public to view. The purpose of this would be to show off a student's project (a flashy LED advertisement via programming) and to try to engage more people to actively participate in KES who may not have already been participating.
Additionally, we are interested in surveying active students in KES and who use the T-Space to see what improvements in infrastructure they believe would be beneficial to their development of an I&E mindset. Tailoring the two resources to the people who actually use them could be largely beneficial for more fluid thought and I&E mindset.
Kettering BIN / Maker Fair
Description
Our idea is to create a functioning club that will support students in project like works and give them an area to showcase their projects and initiatives to other students, faculty, and community. With this we plan to kick it off with a Maker Faire in which teams are formed and compete to solve the challenge. Allowing for multiple degree type input and work. Creating a more interdisciplinary collaboration environment for the students. These Challenges would be either of an open nature where the students get to pick the challenge they want to solve or a goal like challenge where there is a desired end goal. Our first Maker Fair was a 24 hour challenge were 20 students had to design something for collony living on a planet with different species and conditions.
Crowd Funding Site
Description
Our idea is to create a website allowing for alumni, parents, and the community to invest in student ideas. Our university routinely reaches out to alumni for donations to the school. We think we have the opportunity for our university's investors to directly invest in the amazing ideas of our fellow students.
This site then would allow students to post ideas and have the community view them. KES would be able to help guide and provide mentorship to help their ideas thrive.
Tedx Event
Background
Kettering University has organized two TEDx Flint events in 2010 and 2011. Both events were attended by several students, faculty and members of the Flint community. The event was put together by Kevin Simpson in coordination with Dr. Doug Melton, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Kettering University, and other members of staff. The speakers included a comprehensive list of local entrepreneurs, artists and professors.
Proposal
The proposal is to bring the event back. As TED talks gain popularity both inside and outside the classroom, the event will give members of the Flint, Michigan and Kettering University communities a chance to share their stories and their problems. Many Kettering students pride themselves as problem-solvers, and this event will help them focus their energies in order to solve problems in their neighborhoods.
Campus Life App
Proposal
Provide access to all Kettering University resorces in one place. This will allow students and faculty to get conected to others on campus who can help with classes, projects, reaserch, and much more. This app will allow students to see upcoming events they can sign up for and download the information to their Kettering google calendar. After surveying a range of students and faculty to provide useful information and effective results. This will allow students to be more active on campus and help us get connected.
Leaders
2014: Hunter Casbeer, Saheb Kapoor, Massoud Tavakoli, Alexander Barath, Eddie Scholdolski; Garreth Brazil.
2015: Alan Xia, Cheyne Westerman, Hunter Casbeer, Massoud Tavakoli. We also want to keep this open to the Kettering community, with the hope that anyone can get involved with this project.
2016: Jace C. Stokes and Moe Ghias both worked to become UIFellows and want to keep exposing Kettering students to innovation.
2017: Eric Rickabaugh, Chelsea Carter, Shane Thiede, and Ashley Switalski are working to continue and bolster the projects of our other UIF members and to increase the entrepreneurial mindset in A and B Sections.
2018: Julia Rickabaugh, Cody Brock, and Rebecca Abbott-McCune are working towards increasing awarness in student resorces to help students on their path from innovation and entrepreneurship.
Related Links
University Innovation Fellows
| UIF Launch Term | Student Name and Bio | Kettering Academic Section |
| Spring 2018 | Julia Rickabaugh | A-Section |
| Spring 2018 | Rebecca Abbott-McCune | A-Section |
| Spring 2018 | Cody Brock | B-Section |
| Spring 2017 | Chelsea Carter | A-Section |
| Spring 2017 | Eric Rickabaugh | A-Section |
| Spring 2017 | Ashley Switalski | B-Section |
| Spring 2017 | Shane Thiede | B-Section |
| Spring 2016 | Moe Ghias | A-Section |
| Spring 2016 | Jace C. Stokes | A-Section |
| Spring 2015 | Cheyne Westerman | A-Section |
| Spring 2015 | Alan Xia | A-Section |
| Spring 2014 | Hunter Casbeer | A-Section |
| Spring 2014 | Saheb Kapoor | A-Section |
Related links
