ENGINEERING EVENTS Student panelist Weijing Qiu (far left) speaks during the Powertrain Student research Panel's Q/A period. Special program at COMVEC puts graduate students to the test As they had done for the past five years, a small team of seasoned engineers again organized a special COMVEC 2022 panel session designed specifically to build up the research and presentation skills of a select group of students. The Powertrain Student Research Panel is spearheaded by Jim McCarthy, engineering manager at Eaton and a member of the COMVEC Powertrain Committee. The four students participating in the panel at September's COMVEC conference bring to more than 20 the number who have passed through the program since its inception. Asked how the students are selected to participate, McCarthy said: " This is a competitive process. We recruit the four best graduate students we can find each UPDATE year, and we work with them over the course of five months - about 200 hours. What we're really doing is helping them prepare and give a chief engineer/VP presentation, which is unlike anything they've ever done in their life. " The students' individual presentations, like most of those given at SAE conferences, involve speaking unscripted about their research project to however many COMVEC attendees care to drop into the session. Each student displays Powerpoint slides as they talk, covering as much ground as they can in their 12-minute presentation slot, one after another. The students then submit to questions from the audience. The presentation is the culmination of much hard work on the parts of the students January 2023 29 SAE International