The EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service) in IEEE initiative had a report yr in 2025, funding 48 initiatives involving practically 1,000 college students from 17 international locations. The IEEE Educational Activities program permitted essentially the most initiatives this yr, distributing US $290,000 in funding and engaging more students than ever earlier than in modern, hands-on engineering methods.
This system presents college students alternatives to have interaction in service studying and collaborate with engineering professionals and group organizations to develop options that deal with local people challenges. The initiatives undertaken by IEEE groups embody scholar branches, sections, society chapters, and affinity teams together with Women in Engineering and Young Professionals.
EPICS in IEEE supplies funding as much as $10,000, together with assets and mentorship, for initiatives targeted on four key areas of community improvement: training and outreach, atmosphere, entry and skills, and human providers.
This yr, EPICS partnered with 4 IEEE societies and the IEEE Standards Association on 23 of the 48 permitted initiatives. The Antennas and Propagation Society supported three, the Industry Applications Society (IAS) funded 9, the Instrumentation and Measurement Society (IMS) sponsored 5, the Robotics and Automation Society supported two, the Solid State Circuits Society (SSCS) offered funding for 3, and the IEEE Standards Association sponsored one.
The tales of the partner-funded initiatives exhibit the impression and the impact the initiatives have on the scholars and their communities.
Matoruco agroecological backyard
The IAS scholar department on the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Colombia labored on a mission that concerned water storage, automated irrigation, and waste management. The aim was to remodel the Matoruco agroecological backyard on the Institución Educativa Los Garzones right into a extra vigorous, sustainable, and accessible house.
These EPICS in IEEE staff members from the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Colombia are configuring a radio communications community that can ship knowledge to an internet dashboard displaying the solar power utilization, pump standing, and soil moisture for the Matoruco agroecological backyard on the Institución Educativa Los Garzones. EPICS in IEEE
By utilizing an irrigation automation system, electrical pump management, and soil moisture monitoring, the staff aimed to point out how engineering ideas mix educational information and sensible utility. The initiative makes use of monocrystalline solar panels for energy, a programmable logic controller to mechanically handle pumps and valves, soil moisture sensors for real-time knowledge, and a LoRa One community (a proprietary radio communication system based mostly on unfold spectrum modulation) to ship knowledge to an internet dashboard displaying solar energy utilization, pump standing, and soil moisture.
Los Garzones preuniversity college students had been taught concerning the irrigation system by way of hands-on initiatives, acquired coaching on natural waste administration from college college students, and took part in set up actions. The college staff additionally organizes backyard cleanup occasions to have interaction youthful college students with the group backyard.
“We search to generate a real sense of belonging by providing college students and school a gathering place for hands-on studying and shared duty,” says Rafael Gustavo Ramos Noriega, the staff lead and fourth-year electronics engineering scholar. “By integrating technical information with enjoyable actions and coaching periods, we empower the group to maintain the backyard alive and proceed enhancing it.
“This mission has been an unmatched platform for getting ready me for knowledgeable profession,” he added. “By main every little thing from price range planning to the ultimate set up, I’ve skilled firsthand all of the levels of an actual engineering mission: scope definition, useful resource administration, staff coordination, troubleshooting, and delivering tangible outcomes. All of this reinforces my aim of dedicating myself to analysis and growth in automation and embedded systems and contributing innovation within the agricultural and environmental sectors to assist extra communities and make my mark.”
The mission acquired $7,950 from IAS.
College students give a tour of the methods they put in on the Matoruco agroecological backyard.
A wise braille system
Greater than 1.5 million people in Pakistan are blind, together with hundreds of youngsters who face obstacles to accessing important studying assets, in accordance with the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness. To deal with the necessity for accessible studying instruments, a scholar staff from the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) and the IEEE Karachi Section created BrailleGenAI: Empowering Braille Learning With Edge AI and Voice Interaction.
The interactive system for blind youngsters combines edge artificial intelligence, generative AI, and embedded methods, says Kainat Fizzah Muhammad, a mission chief and electrical engineering scholar at MUET. The system makes use of a digital camera to acknowledge tactile braille blocks and supply real-time audio suggestions by way of text-to-speech expertise. It contains gamified modules designed to assist literacy, numeracy, logical reasoning, and voice recognition.
The staff partnered with the Hands Welfare Foundation, a nonprofit in Pakistan that focuses on inclusive training, disability empowerment, and group growth. The staff collaborated with the Ida Rieu School, a part of the Ida Rieu Welfare Association, which serves the visually and listening to impaired.
“These partnerships have been instrumental in serving to us plan outreach actions, collect enter from consultants and caregivers, and put together for usability testing throughout various environments,” says Attiya Baqai, a professor within the MUET digital engineering division. Help from the Arms basis ensured the answer was formed by the real-world wants of the visually impaired group.
SSCS offered $9,155 in funding.
The coed staff exhibits how the sensible braille system they developed works.
Macedonia’s capital, Skopje, is amongst Europe’s most polluted cities, notably in winter, on account of thick smog brought on by temperature adjustments, in accordance with the World Health Organization. The WHO experiences that town’s air comprises particles that may trigger well being points with out early warning indicators—generally known as silent killers.
A staff at Sts. Cyril and Methodius University created a system to measure and publicize native air pollution ranges by way of its What We Breathe mission. It goals to boost consciousness and enhance well being outcomes, notably among the many metropolis’s youngsters.
“Our aim is to offer individuals with data on present air pollution ranges to allow them to make knowledgeable selections relating to their publicity and take protecting measures,” says Andrej Ilievski, an IEEE scholar member majoring in laptop {hardware} engineering and electronics. “We selected to give attention to faculties first as a result of youngsters’s lungs and immune methods are nonetheless creating, making them one in all our inhabitants’s most weak demographics.”
The mission concerned 10 college college students working with excessive faculties, school, and the Society of Environmental Engineers of Macedonia to design and construct a sensing and show device that communicates by way of the Internet.
“By main every little thing from price range planning to the ultimate set up, I’ve skilled firsthand all of the levels of an actual engineering mission: scope definition, useful resource administration, staff coordination, troubleshooting, and delivering tangible outcomes.” —Rafael Gustavo Ramos Noriega
“Our sensing unit detects particulate matter, temperature, and humidity,” says mission chief Josif Kjosev, an electronics professor on the college. “It then transmits that knowledge by way of a Wi-Fi connection to a public server each 5 minutes, whereas our show unit retrieves the information from the server.”
“Since deploying the system,” Ilievski says, “everybody on the staff has been smitten by how nicely the mission connects with their highschool viewers.”
The staff says it hopes college students will proceed to work on new variations of the units and supply them to different faculties within the space.
“For many of my life, my educational success has been on paper,” Ilievski says. “However due to our EPICS in IEEE mission, I lastly have an actual, bodily object that I helped create.
“We’re grateful for the chance to make this mission a actuality and be a part of one thing greater.”
The mission acquired $8,645 from the IMS.
Society partnerships depend
Due to partnerships with IEEE societies, EPICS can present extra alternatives to college students world wide. This system additionally contains mentors from societies and journey grants for conferences, enhancing the scholar expertise.
The collaborations encourage college students to use applied sciences within the IEEE societies’ areas of curiosity to real-world issues, serving to them enhance their communities and fostering continued engagement with the society and IEEE.
You possibly can learn to get entangled with EPICS by visiting its web site.
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