The Union College IEEE Student Branch focuses on various real-world applications of signal processing with the purpose of preparing members for the annual signal processing cup hosted by IEEE international. The club meets weekly to discuss this as well as other applications of electrical engineering, and all who share a passion for such endeavors are welcome to join!
The IEEE Signal Processing Cup
Every year, member’s of Union College’s IEEE Club participate in the international Signal Processing Cup, hosted by IEEE in nations all over the world. The purpose of the competition is to design an algorithm which accomplishes a data processing task in an efficient and creative manner. Every year the task changes, making for a unique challenge and creating new and interesting problems to solve. Previous years challenges have included a heartrate monitor, a real time beat-tracking algorithm, and most recently a image processing challenge requiring the algorithm identify the camera a photo was taken with based on color sensitivity of the sensor. We look forward to researching and learning about the new task every year, and the competition never gets stale!
Community Outreach
Both Union College and IEEE encourage and support opportunities which allow the IEEE Club to share their knowledge and passion with the campus and local community as a whole. Union’s IEEE Club has hosted many events on campus such as dinner and discussions with distinguished Union College faculty members, workshops for local Schenectady Middle and High School students, and open work sessions for all of our projects. Off campus, we have established our presence in the community by volunteering and tabling for IEEE at a local museum, sending groups to various on site tours at power facilities in the area, and even sending members to out of state IEEE competitions and conferences.
Goals and the Future
Although IEEE is a young club at Union College, being founded in 2017, its members are focused and dedicated to leaving behind an infastructure to ensure the clubs success in the future. The club is made up of students representing all class years at Union, meaning that knowledge and experience can easily be passed to new members, ensuring the club maintains a legacy at Union. Although the challenge provided by the Signal Processing Cup changes every year, the underlying concepts and skills necessary do not, meaning that club members not only get to learn tools used by modern engineers, but get to share this knowledge with their peers as well. The mission of Union College’s IEEE Club is stated below.
The purpose of the Union College IEEE shall be the promotion of knowledge of the theory and practice of all aspects of electrical engineering, computer science, or the related arts and sciences, as well as the advancement of professional development of the Students.