College of Science, Engineering and Technology

Move-In gets the year started off right for incoming GCU students, but it has the same effect on the volunteers who help them. Whether they’re helping for the first time or are seniors and have done it every year, they treasure the excitement. “It’s my third year, and it’s always the same energy,” said one.

Grand Canyon University College of Science, Engineering and Technology professors present their research at the American Scientific Affiliation conference.

Madelyn Hendrikse planned a whopper of a farewell to home in Wisconsin before heading to Phoenix for her first year at GCU. She decided to water ski 62 miles across Lake Michigan with a friend. It’s a rare feat that attracted national media attention. It was hard battling the rough waters in the middle of the lake. She did a lot of praying and gutted it out. It was about more than sking, said the freshman who will study biology with a pre-medicine emphasis: “This journey has taught me that I can achieve anything in life that I set my mind toward.”

A group of 52 GCU students attended the Defcon and Black Hat conferences — called “hacker summer camp” — last week in Las Vegas. They had to apply to be accepted by Black Hat, which brings together professionals from all over the industry. It earned them free tickets to Defcon, where one of the most interesting interactive demonstrations was the Wall of Sheep. Unsuspecting network users (called “sheeple”) got hacked when they let their guard down.

The new GCU Innovation Center now has a director (Robert Vera), a home (Building 66 at 27th Avenue), a slogan (“Create your purpose”) and a GCU-oriented goal — to provide opportunities for both GCU students and local start-ups. Dr. Randy Gibb, Dean of the Colangelo College of Business, calls it “a different way to approach this start-up world.” Vera certainly knows how to approach that world as well as a lot of other ventures. He’s even a best-selling author.

It’s not every day that a university accepts the incoming application of a 15-year-old applicant, but Shreya Muthu isn’t your everyday student. Muthu skipped both eighth grade and her sophomore year of high school and will attend GCU for the fall semester. “I’m super excited, I love the atmosphere here and I’m excited to see the opportunities that it brings me,” she said.

Ryan Hatmaker had good reason to want to make the Disneyland All-American College Band: His parents met there long ago while doing their own performances. But there was one problem. The Grand Canyon University snare drummer, who plays for the Thundering Heard Pep Band, was asked to play a different drum at the audition. He had never play the tenor drums — five instead of one. He didn’t panic. He called on his GCU attitude: Smile and have fun.

“We’re the better neurons!” one student declared at GCU’s Biovision Day Camp after playing a few rounds of the Neuron Game. Sixth through ninth graders not only made like neurons but were wowed by the colors of light streaming through spectroscopes, gandered at 3D printers and more at the camp. It was just one of a quartet of STEM-savvy Thunder Vision offerings, with a different science and tech focus each day (Robovision, Ecovision and Cybervision among them) offered by the University’s K12 Educational Development. More than 500 students are attending the one-day camps, which wrap up today.

For the first time, GCU has rolled out its first Formula SAE race car. The GCU Formula SAE Team, which has been fabricating the small-scale version of a Formula vehicle since January, worked all weekend to get the car ready for the Lincoln Formula SAE competition, which runs from Wednesday to Sunday in Nebraska. A team of about 20 will be recognized with a send-off event at 1 p.m. today outside the Engineering Building. Once they reach the competition, they will be competing against 79 other university teams — around 1,300 undergraduate and graduate students — from not only the United States but countries such as Mexico, Brazil and Canada.

GCU’s professors stepped away from the whiteboards and threw themselves into the world of Harry Potter, “Game of Thrones,” “Pokemon,” “Star Wars and the like as they infiltrated Phoenix Fan Fusion as guest panelists over Memorial Day weekend. They delved into everything from the science of “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” to the biology in the film “Bird Box” to the ethics behind integrating technology and the brain in the film “Ghost in the Shell.” “The audience engagement – that’s the best part about it – and really communicating science with the public in a more fun and entertaining and engaging way,” said biology professor Dr. Darien Hall.