Activities and Organizations 

Student Professional Activities

Mechanical engineering undergraduate students are actively involved in numerous professional development activities through professional society chapters (e.g., ASHRAE, ASME, SAE, and SEDS) and a multitude of project-based learning teams that are hosted by CAMP and SEDS.  Many of these team experiences are done in collaboration with multidisciplinary senior capstone design programs. These activities provide the students an opportunity to develop leadership, teamwork, and inter-personal communication skills; learn about the profession; make industry contacts; and become involved in extracurricular projects, community service, and social activities. 

For a list of student organizations on campus, please click here. 

Professional Society Chapters

  • ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers, Inc.) 
    The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers advances the arts and sciences of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration to serve humanity and promote a sustainable world. Membership is open to any person associated with the field, including indoor air quality, building design and operation, and environmental control for food processing and industry.

  • ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)
    ASME helps the global engineering community develop solutions to real world challenges. Founded in 1880, ASME is a professional organization that enables collaboration, knowledge sharing, and skill development across all engineering disciplines, while promoting the vital role of the engineer in society.  ASME codes and standards, publications, conferences, continuing education, and professional development programs provide a foundation for advancing technical knowledge and a safer world.  ASME helps university students develop their professional identity by offering access to a wide range of activities such as conferences, competitions, scholarships, fellowships, and other programs that will support them through their years in school. 

  • SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers)  
    SAE has more than 300 collegiate chapters at universities throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and offshore chapters in Bulgaria, Columbia, India, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Through the guidance of SAE faculty advisors, over 11,000 student members participate in hands-on engineering projects. Many build vehicles to compete in SAE's annual Collegiate Design Competitions, which include Mini Baja, Formula SAE, Aero Design, Supermileage, Walking Machine Decathlon, and Mico-Truck Baja, plus special events featuring alternative fuel vehicles. 

  • SEDS (Students for the Exploration and Development of Space)

    SEDS empowers young people to participate and make an impact in space exploration. SEDS helps students develop their technical and leadership skills by providing opportunities to manage and participate in national projects as well as to attend conferences, publish their work, and develop their professional network, in order to help students become more effective in their present and future careers in industry, academia, government, and education.   Please see the SEDS Student Section at SDSM&T for more details. 

CAMP Teams (Center for Advanced Multidisciplinary Projects)

To see a current list of all CAMP teams, please click here.

SEDS Teams

  • CubeSat
    The purpose of this organization is to gather a team of students who are interested in space exploration and nanosatellite technologies. The goal is to work together as a team to design a CubeSat and a specific research experiment for the CubeSat and enter it into the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative in hopes of getting the CubeSat launched into space. Also with the interest of K-12 outreach and promoting space exploration to the next generation to come.

  • High-Altitude Balloon Projects
    These projects initiated in the 2016-2017 academic year with the formation of the South Dakota Solar Eclipse Team that prepared a scientific payload to be launched into the path of the 2017 solar eclipse.  That team had a successful flight and the project has continued with the development of a cosmic ray detector for future high-altitude balloon flights and potential CubeSat flights.   Learn more about the Solar Eclipse Team here.

  • MARS (Mines Association of Rocketeers)
    MARS is an organization focused on allowing students to engineer, build, and launch rockets. The primary goal of our organization is to get students involved in the aerospace industry and create an interest in rocketry at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

  • Moonrockers
    The purpose of the Moonrockers team is to coordinate a multidisciplinary effort to design and build a robot that meets the objectives set forth by NASA’s Robotics Mining Competition or related competition.  The concepts developed by Moonrockers conceivably could benefit NASA technology and the competition encourages innovative ideas and solutions for the robotics competition.  In addition, the team conduct multiple K-12 outreach activities throughout the year.

  • NASA Undergraduate Student Instrumentation Projects (USIP)
    Two NASA USIP grants were received to support undergraduate projects.  The first is associated with multispectral imaging for monitoring crop health.  The second is for measuring the helium lift gas in high-altitude balloons.  Both projects are being done in collaboration with Raven-Aerostar.