You have a unique opportunity to visit these local engineering hot spots!
Field trip descriptions are included below. All students should wear long pants and have closed-toed shoes for all field trips. For outdoor field trips, please dress appropriately for February weather in the Pacific Northwest.
Please note, some field trips have specific requirements that must be met prior to the students being able to attend the field trip (requirements are listed below). For field trips that require a signed permission form, the forms will be distributed approximately 2 weeks prior to the E-week event. Students must return the completed permission forms prior to the E-week event.
Daimler Truck Wind Tunnel tour
Tour the Daimler Truck Wind Tunnel and learn about aerodynamic effects and how the company correlates real life data with simulation to support the design of their products.
Daimler Trucks North America
Requirements: Long pants, close-toed shoes, wear PPE provided by facility
Engineering Disciplines: Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical
Boeing’s Portland Fabrication Site
Everyone has heard of The Boeing Company and knows they build airplanes, but what exactly does that mean? Students will visit Boeing’s Portland fabrication site where numerous large airplane structural parts are designed and constructed. In addition, the students will interact with Boeing engineers to learn more about their daily lives while working in a large, successful company.
Requirements: US Citizenship, close-toed shoes, background checks (names 2 weeks before field trip)
Engineering Disciplines: Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical
Legacy Health Biomechanics Research & Technology Center
The Legacy Biomechanics Laboratory conducts research on unsolved problems related to bone fractures and their treatment. Based on research findings, solutions are developed to improve patient care.
In addition to treatment of fractures, we also focus on prevention of head injury by advanced testing of a wide variety of helmets, including bicycle helmets and construction helmets.
Requirements: Masks will be required (provided by facility)
Engineering Disciplines: Mechanical Engineering, Biomechanical Engineering, Research & Development
OHSU's Department of Biomedical Engineering
Use of engineering principles to develop tools to study the processes of chronic inflammation, thrombosis and cancer metastasis.
Requirements: Masks will be required (provided by facility)
Engineering Disciplines: Mechanical, Biomedical
https://www.ohsu.edu/school-of-medicine/biomedical-engineering
Oregon Tool
Requirements: Close-toed shoes, long pants, must wear PPE provided by facility, minimum age is 15 years old
Engineering Disciplines: Design, manufacturing, testing, process, quality, metallurgical engineering
Product Design and manufacturing facility of several hundred people where chain is built for forestry and concrete cutting applications.
Micro Systems Engineering, Inc. (MSEI)
Requirements: Long pants (no rips or tears), close-toed shoes. Long hair needs to be secured in a ponytail or braids so it all fits under a hair net.
Engineering Disciplines: industrial automation, software programming, hardware design. Electrical, industrial, mechanical, and manufacturing engineering.
Micro Systems Engineering is a world-leader in the area of Cardiac Rhythm Management (Pacemaker and Defibrillator) design and development. Students visiting the MSEI campus will learn about the operation of these life-saving devices and about engineering opportunities. The highlight of the visit is a ~45 minute tour of a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility during which the entire process of assembling the electronics for a device is demonstrated.
Portland State University
Come tour the Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science! We will be showing students around the college, student group spaces, study spaces, and more. Students will be introduced to current students and can learn more about their experience learning as a college student in downtown Portland.
Requirements: N/A
Engineering Disciplines: Mechanical & Materials engineering, Computer Science, Electrical & Computer engineering, Civil & Environmental engineering
Columbia Blvd Wastewater Treatment Plant
Consisting of two treatment plants and almost a hundred pumping stations across the City, we have hundreds of horsepower of connected equipment and miles of industrial piping facing corrosion, fatigue, and erosion modes of failures. Our team of engineering design and project managers, operations, and maintenance staff constantly work with challenging and varying hydraulics (gaseous, liquid, and semi-solid) using hundreds of controls and monitoring instruments, biological treatment systems, and chemical feed systems. Our facilities include a cogeneration system generating 1.7 MW of power using renewable energy recovered from wastewater operations, and we are currently finishing the construction of a bio-CNG facility for vehicle fuel use. Notably this year, there are major construction activities under way, which will allow us to bring construction engineering as well! These facilities offer a world of opportunity for engineering students of many interests, while being in a field with stable growth that is not as susceptible to economic ups and downs.
Every year, high school students and engineering students have a chance to do internships with the City and our partners. We strive to make our internships exciting and expose students to an array of experiences, working in teams with operators, maintenance staff, engineers, drafters, construction staff, and consulting engineers, all with the intent of protecting public health and the environment. We are excited at the opportunity to host Engineer’s Week this year again, where we have a lineup of staff ready to give you some more information on what we do every day.
Requirements: Long pants, close-toed shoes, must wear PPE provided by facility
Engineering Disciplines: Environmental, mechanical, electrical, chemical, and civil engineers implementing anything from small projects to multi million dollars of long lasting infrastructure.
https://www.portland.gov/service-locations/columbia-boulevard-wastewater-treatment-plant
PAE Living Building Tour
Tour Portland’s first Living Building to learn about sustainable engineering. The building embodies PAE's vision to help solve the planet’s energy and water challenges. Set to be the world’s first developer-driven Living Building, the five-story, mixed-use building will demonstrate replicable and cost-effective solutions for sustainable design removing barriers to entry for highly sustainable projects while revitalizing the community.
The tour will cover all petals of the International Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge, which includes placement of the building health and happiness of the tenants; beauty; equitability of the company; water, energy, and building material efficiency.
Requirements: N/A
Engineering Disciplines: Mechanical, electrical, plumbing, lighting, technology
https://www.pae-engineers.com/
https://www.pae-engineers.com/projects/pae-portland-living-building
Abernethy Bridge Construction Site
Requirements: Long pants, boots, wear PPE provided by facility
Engineering Disciplines: Civil engineering, including: Bridge, Road, Hydraulics, Environmental, Construction, and Geotechnical
ODOT is upgrading the Abernethy Bridge, which spans the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, to withstand a major earthquake and widening it to accommodate a future third travel lane. Additional improvements are being made to the bridge's adjacent on- and off-ramps to improve safety.
Eweek is excited to present an opportunity for students to tour the Abernethy Bridge Construction project. Chris Aguon is a construction manager for ODOT and will lead the tour. The tour will visit locations on both sides of the river to observe activity and different details of the construction.