UF IEEE members are on a winning streak, winning more than $3,500 in scholarships and prizes this year.

When Brian Sapp took over as president of the UF's student chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers last year, he had one goal: to see his student branch become the best in the country — better yet, the world.

Based on the sheer number of awards they've received this year, the group is right on schedule.

IEEE, sponsored by the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, won the University's Outstanding Program award for 2007-2008 and broke records at the annual student conference, SoutheastCon — just to name a few.

Once again, it was one of the branches in Southeast to receive the Regional Exemplary Student Branch Award from the global IEEE organization. IEEE member Yi Lin Pei also won second place in the IEEE-USA Video Scholarship Competition in February, and three other members placed seventh out of 130 teams in the IEEEXtreme 24 Hour Programming Challenge in March.

"We're very proud of them," Department Chair Mark Law said. "They've really ramped up their activity. It seems like every week they've got two or three events going on for students to participate in."

Student involvement has also never been higher, said IEEE faculty adviser Eric M. Schwartz. For example, IEEE began the school year with 200 students on its mailing list. It ended the year with 900. About half are now due-paying members.

"We've never even been close to that," said Schwartz, the adviser since 2002 and member of IEEE since 1982.

To win Outstanding Program, IEEE competed against more than 600 UF student organizations. It won by establishing a new event — a bi-annual career week that invites companies like IBM and Texas Instruments to directly connect with electrical engineering students.

When the showcase was repeated in the spring, an average of 100 students attended each event. IEEE had to turn away companies because it simply couldn't accommodate all of them. The weeklong event — which includes information sessions, barbecues, technical talks and résumé workshops — coincides with the University's Career Showcase.

"What the Career Resource Center does can't be dismissed, because it's certainly top-notch," said Sapp, the UF IEEE president. "Companies are very pleased to attend both. I think it really strengthens both groups."

Sapp, who says the IEEE's aim is to help engineering students, said he was especially pleased to hear that several of his officers were offered positions from major companies as a result of the fair.

They had similar success at SoutheastCon 2008, an IEEE conference in Huntsville, Ala., where UF competed with 40 other universities in seven competitions. UF placed in five competitions — more than any other school. The second-best placed in two competitions, Schwartz said.

In his 30 years with IEEE, Schwartz says he can't recall any other school placing in as many categories.

"The guy who was announcing all the awards, he said 'OK, here's another one for the University of Florida…again.' It wasn't even close," Schwartz said.

Preparation for each competition begins months beforehand. For example, the most competitive event — the Hardware Competition — required teams to build a robot that could locate and collect cubes on its own.

The six-member team started work on the robot last May, Sapp said. The project required months of their time. When they arrived at SoutheastCon, they had to fix a component that failed at the last minute. They won third place.

"What's great is, they've already met again following SoutheastCon to talk about what they did right and what they did wrong," said Sapp. "What that shows me is that they're really hungry to win next year and I'm very excited about that."

In addition to their wins, IEEE was also nominated for UF's "Most Improved Organization." Sapp was nominated for Outstanding Officer and Schwartz was nominated as Adviser of the Year.

"I hope we did great things for the College of Engineering, our Department and the University," Sapp said. "We had a great year."

Conference Winners

• Student Paper Competition – 1st Place
  • Camilo Buscaron
  • Luis Vega
• Design Presentation Competition – 1st Place
  • Jim Martz
• Software Competition – 2st Place
  • Dmitri Dranishnikov
  • John Iacona
  • Tim Smith
• Ethics Competition – 2nd Place
  • Tony Gregory
  • Carolyn Krekeler
  • Brian Sapp
• Hardware Competition – 3rd Place
  • Owen Allen
  • Mike Franks
  • Cory Foskey
  • Bryan Hood
  • James Martz
  • Jose Vento