Events

Besides the wonderful selection of competitions that will take place during the conference, we have some activities to fill the times in-between! Activities will span from Friday afternoon through Saturday night, with both interactive and lecture-style events.

Friday Night Social

Once attendees have settled in to their hotel rooms they are encouraged to head over to our campus for the Friday Night Social activity. This event will span Friday afternoon through the night, and provide an exciting space to meet and mingle with students from every school attending! During the social there will be lots of fun activities, ranging from games to mini challenges, plenty of free food, and one major challenge: the hackathon.

This year’s hackathon will challenge participants to complete a small electronic task, utilizing skills like circuit design and implementation, programming, and general creativity. No prior knowledge is required beyond basic circuit and programming skills, and if you need help, we’ll have a group of technicians ready to work with you. Full details about what you’ll be building will be announced at the hackathon.

During the social there will also be closely-located practice rooms for several competitions, for use by teams as needed.

The Welcome Ceremony

After an exciting night of games, practice, and food, students will make their way to the campus Saturday morning to sign-in, get some coffee, and attend the Welcome Ceremony. This is the official kick-off of the conference, with a brief word from some of the conference’s leaders, and a couple of comments about how the day will run. Be sure to attend this event to receive critical information about how Saturday will run, and to get any last-minute schedule changes.

The Networking Reception

A conference of this scale and quality wouldn’t be possible without the amazing support from local industry and organizations. Saturday afternoon will feature an opportunity for you to meet recruiters and employees of the companies that made all this possible. This is a fantastic chance to learn about the technical work these companies have to offer, and to land a technical internship/full time job! Bring your resumes!

Lightning Talks

Throughout the day on Saturday, there will be a series of technical, professional, and academic activities. These events, named the Lightning Talks, will be 30 minute to one hour lectures or workshops, given by local industry, IEEE leadership, and your peers! Some of these talks may include officer training for IEEE student branch officers, technical lectures about what local companies have to offer, and panel-discussions with graduate students about graduate school. A full list of talks will be provided upon arrival to the conference.

The Banquet

Of course, the SAC wouldn’t be complete without an amazing banquet to close out the conference. After the competitions, students will head back to their hotel rooms for a brief break and to change into business formal attire before going to the banquet location. The banquet will include an amazing keynote speech from one of our sponsors, to both educate and inspire us all. To conclude the conference, scores for each competition will be announced at the end of the banquet, and some pretty awesome prizes awarded to the first, second, and third-place winners of each competition.

Campus Tours

Interested in learning more about UMBC, our current research activities, or visiting lab spaces? Just want to get around campus? We’ll have a selection of tours available throughout the day to show off our beautiful campus! A full list of campus tours will be available upon arrival to the conference.