Marketing and Communications

Pellissippi State Technical Community College’s robot rolled over cans, bottles and some big-name competition as well.

The Pellissippi State Robotics Team recently participated in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. SoutheastCon 2009 Student Hardware Competition. The competition was hosted by the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, where the student team’s robot picked up bottles and cans–and 11th place among a roster of 44 teams.

The team of five students from Pellissippi State, one of only three community colleges competing, beat out teams from some highly respected four-year schools, among them Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, The Citadel and Clemson University.

Ken Swayne, Electrical Engineering Technology program coordinator, accompanied students Daniel Foster, Rick Gonyea, Aaron Kesterson, Jake Storey and Quoc Viet.

Each participating school was given the same assignment: Build a recycling robot that can pick up bottles and cans and sort them accordingly. The Pellissippi State team began designing the 12-by-12-by-18-inch robot last fall.

“Parts were supposed to be recycled as much as possible,” said Carl Mallette, the college’s IEEE club advisor. “The robot runs on a computer program that the students wrote.”

“At the beginning of fall semester, we started brainstorming at meetings,” said Gonyea, an older student who has worked on electrical and computer systems for the military and is the chair of Pellissippi State’s student IEEE chapter. IEEE is the world’s leading professional association for the advancement of technology.

When it comes to robotics, Pellissippi State’s team has come a long way in a short time, both in competition and in the classroom.

The student team took part in its first SoutheastCon competition in 2007 and has placed in the top 25 percent all three years.
“Four years ago, there was no robotics in EET at Pellissippi State at all. Now we’re starting to integrate classes that contain robotics within the program,” Mallette said.

“Many assembly lines in industry incorporate robotics,” Swayne said. “We have a course pending for 2010 called Robotics and Automation. This coming fall we will offer ‘dual enrollment’ classes that will introduce high school students to electrical engineering technology and some basic robotics concepts.”

Swayne said the job market for technicians is very good.

“In fact, we can’t produce enough technicians to meet the demand,” he said.

High school students will be able to take the Pellissippi State class and receive both high school and college credit.

For more information on Pellissippi State’s robotics classes, or engineering technology program, contact Ken Swayne at (865) 694-6496.

When Stephani Turner walks across the stage at Pellissippi State Technical Community College’s Commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 9, she’ll be the college’s first student to receive a high school diploma and an associate’s degree in the same academic year.

Turner, an 18-year-old Knoxville resident, started taking classes at Pellissippi State four years ago.

A home-school student, she enrolled part time at Pellissippi State and earned high school and college credit through the Dual Enrollment program. Turner received her high school diploma in December and graduates from Pellissippi State with an associate’s degree in Business Administration, concentrating in Marketing.

Turner is the oldest of five children, and her parents home-school all of them. When she first started classes at the college, she recalls, her mother had to drive her to campus.

“My mom would bring schoolwork from my siblings to check, and she’d just stay in her car and I would go to my classes.”
Turner says she liked the atmosphere at Pellissippi State, made friends and took about 10 hours each semester on average.

“I think Pellissippi is a great school,” she said. “I would advise anyone who is going to attend a four-year university to start at a community college first. It’s a good transition.”

She plans a dual major in marketing and economics at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville and hopes to start classes there in spring 2010.

Pellissippi State’s Commencement ceremony is at 10:30 a.m., at UT’s Thompson-Boling Arena. This year’s speaker is State Rep. Joe Armstrong.

The race for green energy is on for engineering students at Pellissippi State Technical Community College.

Engineering students competed last week to see who would be the first to build a solar water heater that would reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Students present those projects in class at 6 p.m. Wednesday and at 2 and 3 p.m. Thursday at the Pellissippi Campus on Hardin Valley Road.

Mary Kocak, professor of Engineering and Media Technologies at the college, says she is proud of the students’ work. Kocak says that she encouraged them to be creative with their projects.

“I told my students, ‘We’d still be driving Model T’s if we didn’t try different things,’” she said.

Each semester the engineering transfer students in Fundamentals of Engineering II complete a unique project and “engage in a friendly competition,” says Kocak.

Forty students are presenting 10 projects this semester. Teams of engineering students have spent the last nine weeks designing and constructing the solar water heaters.

The Knoxville chapter of the American Marketing Association recently recognized Pellissippi State Technical Community College student Annie Hursey by naming her an Outstanding Marketing Student. Hursey received the award for her service to the student chapter.

As the Pellissippi State AMA’s vice president of membership, Hursey spearheaded many activities, from increasing student membership to getting the group involved in community service projects such as Big Brothers Big Sisters.

According to Anne Swartzlander, the PSAMA faculty co-advisor with Lisa Bogaty, Hursey was instrumental in assisting the chapter. Swartzlander and Bogaty nominated Hursey for this year’s award.

Pellissippi State was the first community college in the South to establish a student chapter of the American Marketing Association. The chapter provides professional networking opportunities for Marketing students, enhances their leadership skills and provides education about marketing opportunities.

For additional information, contact Anne Swartzlander at (865) 539-7032 or aswartzlander@pstcc.edu.