Inspiring the Next Generation of Engineers for EWeek

Every year, Engineers Week celebrates the engineering profession and strives to inspire the next generation of professionals. Committing to STEM education and outreach year-round is one way we support those efforts. In this short video, you can see some of the ways we give back to our communities and lend our expertise.

A/E/C Internship Program
Last year, we participated in the 2020 A/E/C Internship Partnership. Organized by BHC Rhodes, it was created to offer participants exposure to the project life cycle, partner relationships, and disciplines outside of their course of study. Find our interns impressions of the program here.

Future Cities
For years, Affinis has been involved with the Discover Engineering (DiscoverE) Future City science and engineering competition. At this event, small groups of middle-school students design and build cities that represent their vision of the future. Students work as a team with an educator and engineering mentor to make their plans. Affinis presents one team with the “Making Life Easier” award for building the city that makes life easier for its citizens.

The University of Kansas’s Driving Simulator
The University of Kansas’s (KU) Transportation Engineering Analysis Laboratory (TEAL) acquired a driving simulator in 2016. Our firm helped to partner on this effort and shared sets of CAD files for our 159th Street project so students can test the safety of a design in a practical way. You can see how the simulator has been enhanced over the last several years here.

UMKC Instructor
Linda Rottinghaus, PE, ENV SP, is a principal and senior project engineer on our team. In addition, she is also a practitioner for the Civil Senior Design class at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. She mentors one of the teams on their project, which is an actual project that a local city or MoDOT wants to complete. She is there to answer their questions and help guide them through the project, as well as all the different manuals.