LEAPing Online: Maintaining Technical Proficiency at Home

Like many other student chapters across the country, AIChE at UCLA’s technical projects were put to a halt when administration announced that instruction during spring would be conducted remotely. Despite this, we continued supporting our members by running one project, the Lifetime Engineering Applications Project (LEAP), completely online. LEAP utilizes chemical engineering process simulators to model industrial chemical processes, while also providing students an ethical and economic perspective on industry. This presentation will explore our experience transitioning to an online technical project and how to adapt to changes in budget, participation, and scheduling. Starting with an explanation on the relevant experience LEAP provides to students pursuing careers in industry, we will express our motivation for moving online and what makes a project viable for online instruction. Afterwards, we will discuss maximizing the resources an online environment introduces, maintaining participation levels, and being as accommodating as possible for our project members.