Irvine : Nerd Contest Highlights UCI Engineering Week

It’s that time of year again when nerds on the UC Irvine campus vie for the title of Prince of Nerds during Engineering Week, a tradition that celebrates the lighter side of microchips and rocket design.

The nerd contest at noon Wednesday is part of a four-day schedule of events beginning Tuesday and intended for fun and for use of engineering skills, university spokeswoman Cynthia Morris said.

Other contests involve dropping eggs from a nine-story building to test designs for break-proof containers, answering silly questions in a form of engineering Trivial Pursuit, flying paper airplanes and playing a Frisbee golf match.

Maneuvering a 5-by-5-inch electronic box out of a maze is the easy part of the micro-mouse contest, which requires competitors to design a self-contained “mouse,” complete with computing circuitry, the steering mechanism, power supply and optical sensors, engineering professor Roland Schinzinger said.

“It’s definitely something that really boosts their morale during the year and gives them a break from studying,” Morris said.

The events, sponsored by student and professional engineering societies, will take place Tuesday through Saturday in and around the UCI engineering plaza. For information about dates and times of events, call Cynthia Morris at 856-7913.