More than 30 students and two faculty members attended the Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Groups of students presented technical papers as well as participated in programming and robotics competitions. 

The Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium (MICS) is a regional conference dedicated to providing an educational experience to students and instructors at higher education institutions. The conference focuses on the teaching of computing and its use in all disciplines and the incorporation of the study of this technology in the curriculum.

B´ÎÔª teams left their mark in several different categories at the symposium. Mitchell Johnstone, Sam Keyser and Adrian Manchado competed in the programming competition and took home fourth place out of 41 teams. 

Eleven groups presented papers at the symposium and one team reigned supreme. A team comprised of Sydney Balboni, Ella Bruce, John Cisler, Caitlyn Grant, Grace Ivey, Benjamin Paulson, Tyge Plater and Brett Storoe took home the Best Student Paper Award for their presentation, NourishNet: Proactive Severity State Forecasting of Food Commodity Prices for Global Warning Systems.

The third place Best Student Paper Award went to Theodore Colwell, Mitchell Mahnke, Evan Schubert and William Sebelik-Lassiter for their project, Reading Between the Lungs: Evaluation of Deep Learning Model Architectures for COVID-19 Classification on Segmented Chest X-rays.

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department faculty members Drs. Derek Riley and Josiah Yoder attended the conference alongside the group of students. 

The trip was made possible thanks to private support from the Steve and Linda Reyer Endowment Fund.  The fund was established in 2019 by a planned gift from the estate of Steve and Linda Reyer to enhance the work of the EECS department and provide meaningful experiences to students. “This is a great example of what we can do when we have funds from generous donors who can make these experiences possible for students,” said Dr. Sheila Ross, chair of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department.  

Learn more about the Steve and Linda Reyer Endowment Fund and its impact on campus.