Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) is a national program that places teams of undergraduate engineering students in partnerships with local community service agencies and institutions. These interdisciplinary teams design, build, and deploy systems to solve engineering-based problems for the non-profit community and educational organizations. This partnership provides many benefits to the students and to the agencies. The students receive academic credit for experiential learning and the community organizations benefit from custom technical expertise that they may not otherwise be able to afford. Students also gain an understanding of the role that engineering and technology can provide in efforts to solve social problems.

EPICS was founded at Purdue University in fall 1995. By 1998, similar EPICS initiatives began at Notre Dame and Iowa State. In 1999, a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant provided for programs to start at the University of Wisconsin and Georgia Tech. Since then, several other universities have started EPICS programs at their campuses.

A national EPICS program was initiated in 2002 to involve a number of EPICS sites on projects of national impact. The first national EPICS project is a partnership with Habitat for Humanity for EPICS affiliates to develop and implement tools to increase the efficiency and quality of home construction and ownership.

The EPICS program at Georgia Tech was established in fall 2000 in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Through spring 2003, the program has worked with 27 project teams, 27 community partners, 159 students and 11 faculty advisors. The EPICS teams include a diverse mixture of students — males, females, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians.

Georgia Tech EPICS Accomplishments

• In February 2003, ISyE and EPICS hosted a Regional Workshop on Engineering and Service Learning that was facilitated by Purdue University and sponsored by Campus Compact and American Association for Higher Education. Twenty-four participants attended the all-day workshop and came from Purdue University, University of Tennessee, Tuskegee University, Atlanta University Center, Southern Polytechnic State University, Mercer University, Georgia Southwestern State University, George Mason University, and Georgia Tech.
  
  
• In May 2003, five faculty and staff representatives attended the National EPICS conference at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
  
  
• Microsoft Corporation, a national EPICS partner, donated software to three Georgia Tech EPICS clients and the EPICS lab, totaling more than $80,000 in retail value.
  
  
• Hewlett-Packard became a national EPICS partner this year and donated tablet computers to EPICS sites.
  
  
• Through a NSF grant, Georgia Tech EPICS sponsored three local high school teachers via the Georgia Tech CEISMC Georgia Industrial Fellowships for Teachers (GIFT) program. Teachers from Sprayberry High School, Lithonia High School, and Chamblee High School all worked with EPICS during the summers of 2001, 2002, and 2003. GIFT teachers were given equipment for their respective school labs valued at approximately $5,000. Among these was Mike Lanham of Sprayberry High School, who received equipment to be used in his Electric Vehicle class.

• Fall 2003 Engineering Enterprise Table of Contents
• Engineering Enterprise Home Page



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