On Tuesday, November 1, 2021, the New Visions Engineering (NVE) Class of 2022 from ONC BOCES attended a tour of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, with instructor David Morell. Upon arrival, the class was led through Duffield Hall by Tom Pennell. A virtual tour of the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) was set up in Duffield Hall for our class at the Young Colloquium Room (340). Rick Ryan sent real-time video footage from the CHESS tunnels to the students and gave very technical information regarding the particle accelerator with input from Samantha Zaharis and Richard Gillilan.After learning about CHESS, the NVE students made their way to Weiss Hall, Cornell’s new BioMedical Engineering (BME) building. Here, the class was brought to the basement by Jordan McMahan to visit and learn about the university’s BME labs. There were many specialized tools out on the tables for biomedical experiments and research. The students were also shown the laboratory’s in-house laser cutter, milling machine, and lathe.
On the way back to Duffield Hall, our class stopped at Barton Hall (Indoor Track & Field) and observed Cornellians running the track or playing volleyball before eating lunch. Our class of 20 students enjoyed eating food from Mattin’s Cafe at Duffield Hall. We were lucky enough to have lunch with NVE Alumni Bradley Morell (NVE20) and Max Madej (NVE21). Our students took this opportunity to ask questions about living on campus, classes, project teams, and social life, getting answers from real students.
After lunch in Duffield Hall, we switched gears back into another engineering virtual tour. This time Tom Pennell put on his clean suit and video chatted us in order to effectively tour Cornell’s clean rooms. These rooms are used for building things that need to be free of all dust and particles
The NVE class then took a glimpse into six out of the many project teams that Cornell University has to offer. We were guided through Cornell Rocketry, CUAir (Plane), CUAUV (Submersible Vehicle), Cornell Seismic Design, FSAE Racing, and Baja Racing project teams in Upson Hall by Lauren Stulgis. We met with a handful of students from each of these project teams and got to understand how collaborative they are.
Our final destination for the day was the Autonomous Systems Lab in Rhodes Hall. Though this was a brief tour, our class learned about how they use robots for 3D mapping which could be potentially lifesaving technology in fire emergencies.
The New Visions Engineering Class of 2022 is truly grateful that Cornell University and its generous staff in having us for a tour, and helping us answer questions that will brighten our engineering career paths.