A week before the College of Engineering’s 2nd annual, “Eggs-Travaganza Hallway Hunt,” scheduled for Thursday, April 14th, nearly 20 Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) students joined Biomedical Engineering staff members Cassandra Parks and Austin Blevins in putting together special BMEG eggs for the department’s portion of the egg hunt.
“We had a lot of fun, and it went faster than I thought it would,” said Cassandra Parks, BMEG’s fiscal support manager. “We listened to music and finished putting the eggs together quickly because we had so many students help thanks to Fah Sysavanh.” Sysavanh is a senior BMEG student and president of BMES. Young Hye Song is the faculty advisor for the organization.
BMES students assembled sustainable Easter eggs
The hunt, hosted by COE’s First Year Program, is a project to increase student retention and familiarize students with the various COE departments. Most departments are using plastic eggs and adding a piece of candy to each one for students to find throughout the engineering buildings, Bell and White Hall.
BMEG staff wanted to take the project a step further, and with BMEG department head Raj Rao’s approval and support, decided to reuse the department’s shredded paper to create paper eggs for the event. Also, instead of candy, staff wanted to provide more substantial prizes.
Over 125 eggs were put together, each holding a strip of paper informing students of the prize they had received. Prizes included BMEG t-shirts, stress Hogs, and special prizes created by staff and family members. Parks crocheted sets of egg-shaped coasters. Piper Hart, a senior U of A art student, made ceramic eggs, and her father, Gene Hart, made sets of ceramic egg-shaped coasters. The Harts are family members of Peg Hart, BMEG’s grants coordinator. Hart made the paper eggs used in the project.
BMEG Student Daniel Maxenberger
“I am excited about our staff thinking outside the box to come up with this creative spin on the egg hunt,” said Rao. “When we get involved in a student project, we want to make it a special experience for students. I think this is another success.”
Story by BMEG’s Fiscal Guru Cassandra Parks