Club History
2014
Club Founding
Access Engineering was founded in 2014 by Will Mannherz and Rahul Gupta. The club started small as an alternative to similar interest organizations at Penn, like Penn Science Across Ages.
Board Expands
The founding board grew to include Chloe Le Comte as Treasurer, Vahid Hoshmand as Lesson Planner, and Kevin Procopio as Community Outreach chair. The founding board received help from Sid Deliwala, a SEAS employee in the Academic Programming Office.
Changing Philosophies
The club started with the idea of asking we as undergraduates became engineers and wondering what resources we needed when we were looking at college paths. The core aspects of the club were built from there – we wanted to show what it was actually like to be an undergraduate.
Board and Club Expand Again
With a new recruiting cycle, Danica Reinicke joined on as Public Relations Chair, Dina took over for Treasurer, and Adam Rawot joined for web presence and marketing. The club grew to accommodate between 30 and 40 students.
Rebranding
In an effort to expand the size of the club on campus, the club gets a new set of logos and fliers.
2015
Advanced Section Introduced
To follow up with students that had already gone through the program, Access introduced an advanced section of the program. This built up on some of the fundamentals of the club – computer science, SolidWorks, and electrical engineering. This was accompanied by an overhaul of the fundamental program to incorporate student..Read More
Record Sizing
The club reached record sizes, with 80 – 90 students enrolled an active waitlist employed. The increased popularity of the club allowed it to be featured in Penn admissions tours and gain access to more classrooms and labs.
A New Period
At the end of 2015, both Will Mannherz and Rahul Gupta moved from their administrative roles and passed the responsibilities to Kaylin Raby.
2016
Access Engineering Wins ESACs Club of the Year
2020
Adjusting to Virtual Times
The Fall 2020 semester of Access Engineering featured virtual, asynchronous lessons found under the “Curriculum” tab. To increase student engagement, live demos were performed for the following three semesters of Access, featuring kits delivered to each of our students and a final project at the end of the year.