1. FROM THE PUB
CHAIR
Here, for the first time in a
couple years, is the IEEE
newsletter. When I took
over the post of publication
chair, I promised to bring
this back both as a record
of what we did over the
year and as a way to bring
new people into the
chapter. I wanted to
capture what it was like to
be in IEEE this year, and I
think I’ve done that. That
being said, I hope you enjoy
the articles that follow.
Alex Yasa,
Publication and Social
Media Chair, 2014-15
MAGNETICS SOCIETY
CALL FOR PROJECTS
The IEEE Magnetics Society
has earmarked $500 to our
chapter for a project
involving magnets or
magnetism. At this point,
we still haven’t found what
we want to do with the
money yet. If you have any
ideas for a project, get a
hold of us at a future IEEE
meeting or contact us at
our Facebook or Twitter
pages.
The RelaySpring
2015
Iowa State University Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Student Chapter
The Relay Spring 2015
3043 Coover Hall
Ames, IA 50012
www.ieee.stuorg.iastate.edu
Other Items of Note
Trips Still Upcoming
Those interested should know that
Lennox is planning a field trip to
their plant in Marshalltown at a
time to be determined, with $100
provided for dinner and other
expenses. As well, Thomson
Reuters is opening up a trip of
their plant for interested women,
sponsored by Digital Women.
Contact Andrew Jiles (ajiles) for
the first and Katie Griesbach
(kgb18) for the second.
Call for Designs for New
ClubFest poster
Any members with Photoshop
experience are welcome to design
a new IEEE chapter poster for
events such as ClubFest (since,
among other things, VEISHEA (RIP)
is not really a good selling point for
our events anymore and shouldn’t
be on any of our promotional
material).
Submissions will be accepted from
now through the end of the
summer, so contact Quinn at
ieeepres@iastate.edu or reach us
on the chapter Facebook page for
more information and to send
suggestions (no spam please).
Iowa State to host 2016
Region 4 SLC
On 8 February, an Iowa State
University bid team was present at
the Engineering Hall at the
University of Wisconsin to bid for
the 2016 Region 4 Student
Leadership Conference.
Because ISU was the only bid for
the conference (other schools
either hosted immediately before
or deemed themselves too small
for an event of this magnitude),
Iowa State was awarded the
conference, contingent on raising
$25,000 within the next year
(please buy a lot of pizza and pop
next fall). We are hoping to secure
additional funding from outside
industry just as they have helped
us foot the bill for our trips out of
state (companies such as Tradebot
and the like).
IEEE Elections coming up 22
April
All IEEE offices will be up for
election at the general meeting on
the 22nd, to be voted on by regular
members of IEEE (the 3 meetings
and an activity requirement
coming into play). Offices include
President, Vice President,
Secretary, Treasurer, and the
chairs of Events, Industry
Relations, Fundraising, Electrical
and Computer Engineering
Curricula, Webmedia, Projects,
Membership and Publications, as
well as our Engineering Student
Council representative. Persistent
rumors of elections for the offices
of Bag of Balls or Mustache
Emeritus are unsubstantiated and
have no authority to them, so
don’t bother running for those.
More information will be released
at the April 15 meeting and on the
election date.
Iowa State IEEE
this issue
Connecting students to their
future P.1
IEEE At the Schools and ROAD
TRIPS! P.2
In-House Chapter Activities and
Project Update P.3
Other Items of NoteP.4
Connecting students to their future:
Members of industry come to Ames
As has been the case since the effective reactivation
of the Iowa State chapter of IEEE a few years ago, the
organization made it a mission to bring members of
industry to Coover Hall to speak about their
experiences and what they are about to the
membership, to aid in both job searching and
networking.
There were some obvious highlights, such as the
Google presentation that brought a packed house
(and then some) to Coover 3043 and stretched the
limits of the fire code, as well as a presentation on
the rise of Epic and how they got that way (complete
with theme offices and the “treehouse”).
As well, there were solid presentations from our
perennial presenters, such as Union Pacific and
Skyworks. Some even came bearing gifts, many
tangible (Hickory Park barbecue was served at the
Skyworks meeting), some not so obvious at first
glance (Tradebot footed the bill for the trip to Purdue
in October).
As well, in an Iowa State first, there was a pre-
Career Fair employer panel organized by IEEE, to
aid in answering questions that may be asked at
the big event itself. This was held in the spring
after being considered in the fall, and the
popularity of the idea will ensure its continuation
in future career fair weeks.
When not having industry present, the floor was
opened to other events, such as lectures by
professors (including a lecture by Dr. Ravi
Hadimari on transcranial magnetics) and
leadership workshops to aid in networking and
future career goals.
A considerable amount of credit for the success
of this year’s presentation series goes to Industry
Relations chair Andrew Jiles and those who have
helped him organize the presentations.

2. SKILL SETS
Lab Jams
The Iowa State IEEE, along with
Eta Kappa Nu, has stepped up
their commitment to teaching
valuable skills to the
membership, and have done so
in the form of lab jams. These
varied from the heavily popular
software and programming
topics of Git, Vim and Matlab,
to more hardware-specific
fields, such as the upcoming TI
Launchpad LabJam (the
Launchpad is an Arduino
tailored for engineering
measurements and projects).
Other Events
As well as activities being held
by the IEEE chapter, other
organizations have opened
their calendars to activities that
IEEE members can get involved
in. Among these are the
Information Assurance group’s
Cyber Defense Competitions,
which simulate an internet
environment that needs
defending from a crack team of
hackers (IASG leadership has
also contributed to Lab Jams,
such as with the Git jam).
Other organizations have
expanded their offerings to our
members as well, such as the
soldering workshop run by
Texas Instruments and Digital
Women, or the HackISU event,
which welcomes all comers to
create new hacks, both in
hardware and software, for
very large cash prizes (well,
large for college students. It
was up in the four digits for the
winners of the 2015 event).
Iowa State IEEE
in the schools
Throughout the academic year,
members of the Iowa State IEEE
have sent their snap circuits to
schools around the city as part
of the University’s science
nights. The goal of these sets
was to introduce students to
how electronics work and to
create interest in an education
and career in electronics.
Something that became
apparent during the course of
these events (at the Ames
elementary schools, North
Grand Mall and Beyer Hall) was
that many of the students that
came to the snap circuits
already had a set of them at
home, although not to the size
that the kits came as. As well,
parents were asking where we
got the kits and how to
purchase them (for the record,
these are Elenco snap circuits).
This did not deter the interest
of young students, and all four
snap circuit boards were often
in use with an overflow crowd
on hand. There was even an
invitation to return to one of
the schools to “break in” a
teacher’s new group of circuit
sets.
As well, there was plenty of
experimentation on the part of
the young students in creating
their own circuits, some being
more successful than others in
operating. Among the more
interesting combinations
involved an attempt to create a
noisemaking device without a
resistor (easier said than done)
and even attempts to cram
every moving and noise making
component into the one
design.
ROAD TRIP (Also, We’re
Number One)!
Iowa State IEEE at Regional Events
While the Iowa State IEEE has
continued its involvement in the
activities of the Central Iowa
section, this year was the first
time in recent memory that the
chapter has actively sent out
touring parties to attend regional
events throughout the Midwest.
There were two major events of
note, with the Purdue University
leadership training event coming
in October, and the Region 4
Student Leadership Conference at
the University of Wisconsn-
Madison occurring later in
February.
The touring party for Purdue
(Matt, Sohail, Quinn, Rohit (sorry,
that should be Kiran), Erik and
Alex, all sponsored by Tradebot)
arrived late in the night on Friday
after a stopover in Davenport for
dinner, and hit the ground
running the next morning,
attending presentations for such
varied interests as the Purdue
homeland security class. Later, an
ethics competition took place,
with ISU Alpha (Matt, Quinn and
Erik) taking second at the event,
with ISU Beta (Alex, Kiran and
Sohail) performing decently as
well.
In February, a slightly larger
touring party converged on
Madison for the leadership
conference, arriving in time for a
presentation by outgoing regional
student activities director
Stephen James (who was also
present at Purdue) and
spectacular lodging at
Wisconsin’s Union South.
The next morning, after an
opportunity to gather
themselves, the team arrived at
breakfast for an address by
Russell Harrison (IEEE’s lobbyist
for Washington DC), who
recommended the IEEE Fly-In for
interested students to help
influence legislation that impacts
the engineering profession and
engineering students (Robert and
Sohail were among the students
who took up Harrison’s offer).
From there, the party travelled
across the expansive Madison
campus to their activities, among
them being a demonstration of
drones and how to build them (a
video of which can be seen, along
with other conference items, on
the Iowa State IEEE Facebook
page) and a demonstration of a
new coding platform by a start-up
in Madison.
The competitions soon followed,
with three teams spread over two
disciplines (nobody was prepared
for a Project Demonstration, and
no one wanted to do the Brown
Bag circuit, least of all the
resident computer engineers
within the touring party
The chapter organized two teams
for the ethics competition, which
had already proven to be a
Cyclone strength, and one team
was assembled for the Maze
Runner contest.
The Maze Running team, ISU Able
(Alex, Robert, Mike and a UW-
Madison ringer) survived the
small maze of the contest
(although it took several tries),
and made it past at least the first
checkpoint of the large maze,
finishing 4th overall and 1st among
the “Power 5 conference” schools
(Purdue and Northwestern were
present, Minnesota dropped out,
and the hosts did not field a
team). The top three awards (all
cash) went to smaller schools.
The ethics competition went
much more smoothly, with ISU
Beta (Erik and Sohail) putting in a
strong performance, but the day
belonged to ISU Alpha (Quinn,
Matt and Allie), who improved on
their finish at Purdue to take top
honors throughout the Midwest.
The event closed with a
presentation from a Rockwell
Automation employee, and the
Iowa State bid team for the 2016
conference (largely everyone who
could wake up in time for the
bidding) was organized in the
morning, with the bid proving
successful (see page 4).
These activities have helped to
spread the Iowa State footprint
across the Midwest, and to give
members an opportunity to hone
valuable skills in industry and in
life.
Project Update
Among the project offers that
were in place throughout the
2014-15 academic year, one of
the more prominent ongoing
projects was the Bluetooth
Helicopter, led by Alex Yasa and
Robert Slezak. This project,
which has been ongoing for the
previous few semesters,
involves wiring a Bluetooth chip
to an RC helicopter and trying
to run the unit with both
modes of communication,
something that has not been
attempted by any other
company or team at this time.
Recently, the hardware portion
of the project came to a
successful conclusion when the
chip started lighting up upon
contact with the voltage and
ground portions of a new
helicopter that was team-
purchased specifically for a
ready prototype.
At this point, there is a call for
coders to help write new code
for the Bluetooth chip for
operation from an Android
device, so that there can be
successful switching between
the device and the RC remote.
A more recent idea has been
brought up to use a PS3 device
as the medium of
communication as well.
An intramural broomball team
was also planned for the fall,
but fell through on account of
organizational issues at the
Recreation department (such as
not having a club level).
Other events held to benefit
the chapter over the semester
were movie nights (Good Will
Hunting in the fall and Space
Jam in the spring) to keep
everyone loose, and the ever
popular Friday pizza sales to
make money (Jeff’s and Papa
John’s have proven to be very
popular, especially around the
occasional Friday Activities at
Noon).
The major spring in-house
event for the Iowa State IEEE
was a combined effort (in
theory) with Digital Women,
HKN and the CSE Club for
KURE’s epic Kaleidoquiz over
the first weekend of March.
While the numbers varied over
the course of 26 hours, the
team continued to hang in
there for an 11th place finish
out of 15 in the field (not bad
for a first year team). Along
with the questions that came
flying from all corners, the Null
Terminators team was involved
in challenges such as scavenger
hunts, Just Dance karaoke, and
a travelling question that sent
two members to Des Moines
on the Saturday of the
competition. As well, photos
and videos were made
throughout the contest, with
some of the more well-made
ones soon to be uploaded to
the chapter Facebook page.
As a traditional capper to each
semester, the chapter also
hosted the fall Central Iowa
section meeting. This was a
more informal affair than the
usual section events, given that
it took place during Dead Week
and the arrangements were
more ad hoc. Among the
headliners at the winter event
was Network Security professor
and guiding figure of cyber
defense research Doug
Jacobson (also in charge of
IASG and ISEAGE). Dr. Steve
Kawaler will headline the spring
event on April 30.
Throughout the year, our
chapter has set itself to
creating activities to bring
members together and create
cohesion.
Among the first was a cookout
organized around the time of
the Iowa State football game
vs. Texas, opened to members
of IEEE and HKN, along with
some survivors from InfAs
Student Group/ISEAGE’s Cyber
Defense Competition. The
occasion, moved to Coover Hall
from its original position at one
of the city parks, proved to be a
great success, as many people
who could not normally appear
to the event did.
Chapter Activities In-House