Engineers' Forum

Project CARDINAL Virginia Tech has been chosen by the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management of the U.S. Department of Energy to oversee a significant feasibility study for the creation of a regional carbon dioxide storage facility in the Roanoke Valley of Virginia. Over the course of the next three decades, the project, called Project CARDINAL, aims to stop an estimated 50 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. Project Cardinal: Geologic C

The Problem Each year, the world produces more than 380 million tons of plastic. Most of it is used just once, then thrown away. Grocery bags, food packaging, shipping materials, and containers made from polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) account for nearly 60% of all plastics produced, but only a small fraction is effectively recycled. The most common approach of recycling, mechanical recycling, gradually lowers the quality of plastic each time it is reused. Eventuall

The Team The Giving Innovative Futures with Technology team, better known as GIFT, is helping engineer a better future for Virginia Tech. GIFT is a community service-oriented design team, similar to a think tank. The members look for technical problems around campus and work to engineer solutions. It was founded in the spring of 2025 by Jia Xi Lin, Alexander Ibacache, and Jamie Christen Osmeña. It has since grown to around sixty active members, with a very promising project

My first introduction to engineering... as a profession was through tales of career inventors and innovators, developing technologies, and subsequently the companies they developed into global empires. Think Henry Ford, with the modern vehicle production line, or Edwin Land, the inventor of the Polaroid. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to become a mechanical engineer because I dreamt of one day inventing a product that would be sold on the mass market. As a Virginia

A Deep Dive into the IIHS Vehicle Research Center On a foggy October morning, a group of Virginia Tech engineering students, organized by the growing Virginia Tech SAE Chapter (commonly known as the Society of Automotive Engineers), traded the familiar sights of Blacksburg for the sprawling campus of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Vehicle Research Center in Ruckersville, Virginia. We were hosted by Luke Riexinger, a former Virginia Tech professor now servin

Virginia Tech's new Center for Advanced Manufacturing brings together research from all around campus for the future of 3D printing.

What is the OLVT? What if students didn’t just study aerospace, but built and launched vehicles themselves? Thanks to a dedicated group of students at Virginia Tech, this dream is now a reality. Started by a group of 10 individuals in 2016, the Orbital Launch Vehicle Team (OLVT) is a student-run organization that is working to deliver an object into low-earth orbit. With increased efforts and member participation, this goal is well within reach. Launch Vehicles Over the cours

What comes to mind when you imagine wearable technology of the future? Whatever your vision is, chances are the technology is sleek and integrated into fashion. Today’s wearables, like watches, rings, or glasses, often fail to live up to these futuristic standards due to their bulky, hard structures. The reason for this clunky form factor is deeply tied with nearly every electronic device: the printed circuit board. Now, imagine if technology wasn’t bound to this decades-old

How a Taekwondo frustration became a 3D printing solution and why you should start your own engineering project too.

What you need to know about HackViolet at Virginia Tech HackViolet, hosted by the Association of Women in Computing (a student-run non-profit organization), is Virginia Tech’s 24 hour hackathon that encourages individuals to bridge the gender gap in the technology field. According to a 2025 study by TechTarget, women currently occupy only 27% of tech occupations . Additionally, women are significantly less likely to receive promotions, leadership roles, and overall opportuni

The Team During the summer of 2025, Virginia Tech’s Concrete Canoe Club participated in the ASCE National Competition at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. In a close competition amongst nineteen concrete canoe teams from around the world, Virginia Tech placed second overall. As a new big player in the Concrete Canoe world, Virginia Tech came to the competition with over twenty students and their advisor, Thomas Carnes. The team was led by captains

What’s Going On? From September 10th to 12th, 2025, ten Virginia Tech students were given the opportunity to attend Tapia 2025 in Dallas, Texas. Organized by Dr. Sehrish Basir Nizamani and Dr. Mohammed Farghally, who are both assistant professors in the Virginia Tech Computer Science department, the Tapia conference celebrates diversity in computing . It provided our group with invaluable experiences, including networking with industry leaders, attending technical workshops,

As a Virginia Tech engineer, at some point in your studies you will be required to take two physics classes: PHYS 2305 and PHYS 2306 (commonly known as Physics 1 and Physics 2, respectively). Maybe you are a first year and will not be taking physics for a semester or two – enjoy it while it lasts. Or maybe you are finished with the freshman/sophomore grind, and you will never touch a physics textbook another day in your life (if you have it within you, you should become a ph

What is the HEVT? Imagine a vehicle that operates cleaner, smarter, and safer than what we are used to in today’s world. Thanks to dedicated students and members of Virginia Tech’s Award-Winning Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team (HEVT), this dream is actively becoming a reality. The HEVT competes at the EcoCAR EV Challenge, where participants select a project to integrate energy-efficient electric propulsion and Vehicle-to-Everything connectivity. Through this competition, HEVT is

The Quality of Life Plus program (QL+) is a national nonprofit organization whose objective is to design and produce personalized solutions for injured veterans to improve their quality of life. QL+ partners with universities across America, providing engineering students with the opportunity to design real-world solutions for the daily challenges faced by injured veterans. These collaborations allow students to create a wide variety of custom assistive devices at no cost to

Since its founding in 2024, the Dataism Lab for Quantitative Finance at Virginia Tech has become a cutting-edge interdisciplinary organization standing at the intersection of mathematics, computer science, and economics, dedicated to pushing the boundaries of opportunity in the field of quantitative finance for Virginia Tech students. DLQF aims to not only enhance students’ leverage in industry recruitment processes, but also strives to empower its members to conduct cutting

or engineering students, internships can be career defining moments. They can be daunting but also very fulfilling. At the end of the day, jobs in the real world are what every engineering student is looking for. I am currently completing my first internship as a chemical engineer, and it has been a great first professional experience as well as a glimpse into my future. This internship has been informative and I feel that I have used a lot of my chemical engineering skills i

Undergraduate research is one of the most rewarding experiences students can take on. It can not only give you crucial experience, usually without requiring any qualifications, but it often helps students realize interests related to their major by working on impactful projects. Plus, research typically has the added benefit of gaining course credit towards your degree, or getting paid a student wage. In addition to honing in on a whole host of technical skills, the soft skil

Students travel to Uganda to spread the spirit of Ut Prosim and help out.

About the Team From the depths of the Ware Lab emerges one of Virginia Tech’s most unique student-run engineering teams: the Human Powered Submarine Team (HPS). Since 1991, HPS has been making waves in the world of underwater innovation by designing, building, and racing fully submerged, human-powered submarines. With pilots on scuba and an engineering challenge unlike any other, the team blends creativity, precision, and teamwork to push the boundaries of marine technology.