CIT Interdisciplinary Operational Energy CAPSTONE: 
The Core Interdisciplinary Team (CIT) kicked off its CAPSTONE event in CH102/152 culminating its first year of implementation. This year-long program focused on engaging the plebe class on operational energy issues via an interdisciplinary/collaborative approach in PL100, MA103/104, IT105, EN101, and CH101/151/102/152 in order to help generate an Energy-Informed Culture within the Corps and Staff & Faculty.
Mission Command Leader-2-Leader: In partnership with the Simon Center, CALDOL facilitated a Leader-2-Leader (L2L) session centered on the experiences of four leaders from Black Knight Troop 3/61 CAV who fought the 3 October 2009 Battle of COP Keating. CPT Stoney Portis, CPT Andrew Bundermann, CPT Chris Cordova, and 1SG Jonathan Hill vividly described harrowing moments from the fight, immersing cadets in their experiences as a catalyst for conversation and learning.
The Concrete Canoe Team: 
The USMA Concrete Canoe team took their vessel, the River Rat, for its maiden and final voyage around Lusk Reservoir. For an independent study project, a five person team consisting of Cadets James Mcloughlin, Mark Owens, Aaron Schares, Alex Pingis and Nate Ryba completed two semesters of independent study, research, and design culminating in the construction of a concrete vessel for competition at the ASCE Northeast student regional conference in April 2013. Upon completion of testing their craft, the team sectionalized the canoe for projects day display, to investigate the causes of cracking and to ascertain the performance of the post tensioning cable they installed after casting
ME496 Capstone Live-fire Range Testing at Picatinny Arsenal: USMA Cadets Steve Hart ’13, Paige Youngerman ’13, and Chris Retsch ’13, and research engineers from the Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center (ARDEC) conducted live fire range testing of a 40mm non-lethal grenade obscurant at Picatinny Arsenal’s Range. The 40mm non-lethal grenade was developed as part of ME496, Mechanical Engineering Capstone.
Habitat for Humanity-Westchester: 
Led by Cadet Nick Pappas, two cadet teams enthusiastically and effectively assisted Habitat for Humanity-Westchester in the reconstruction of a 130 year old house in Yonkers, NY. This house, when completed, will go to support an OEF/OIF veteran and his/her family.
Mechanical Engineering Club and Program Manager, Engineer for JPADS: The Club hosted Mr. Aaron Mebust, Program Manager for US Department of Defense Joint Precision Airdrop Systems (JPADS) Programs of Record, and Mr. Justin Barber, JPADS Research and Development Manager and Engineer. Mr. Mebust and Mr. Barber, working for Airborne Systems, Inc., have been deeply involved in the development of the T-11, MC-6, and ARAPS personnel parachutes.
West Point Negotiation Project Workshop: 
BS&L's Negotiation Project hosted the West Point Negotiation Workshop, for 86 participants, in Jefferson Hall. Workshop participants included 58 West Point cadets, 18 visiting cadets, 8 officers, and 2 FBI agents. Visiting cadets came from the U.S. Naval Academy, Royal Military College (Canada), and ROTC programs at Yale, Princeton, MIT, Cornell, St. Bonaventure, and Texas A&M. Cadets learned the importance of negotiation as a leader competency, were introduced to a framework for systematic analysis of negotiation situations, and practiced negotiating in a series of role-playing exercises.
Cadets-Created Teaching Aids for STEM Education: ME370 cadets were tasked with designing a teaching aid to demonstrate a college-level principle related to STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) to cadets in the 7th – 12th grade. The six winning devices will be manufactured and the cadet designers will be given the opportunity to travel with the Director of the Center for STEM Education on an Urban STEM Outreach trip to demonstrate their device. Manufacture of the teaching aids and cadet travel are being supported by the Center for STEM Education.
Education and Professional Development Colloquium: 
Eight cadets from the Department of Systems Engineering attended the Military Operations Research Societies (MORS) "Education and Professional Development Colloquium" held at the Naval Academy. Five cadets presented their honors work and all eight participated in the group case study competition. The cadets efforts led to their groups being awarded the first, second and third place finishes amongst tough competition.
Service Academy Design Challenge: Cadet Killian Burns, Steve Davidson, Sungi Cho, and Max Saurwein travelled to Shalimar, FL (near Eglin AFB) to compete in the Service Academy Design Challenge. This year’s challenge required teams to build a horizontal gap crossing system for use by squads in traversing varied obstacles up to 20 feet across.
Goldman Sachs Growth Markets Summit Participation: 
Six cadets from the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering travelled with Dr. Jon Malinowski to the Goldman Sachs Growth Markets Summit in New York. The all-day event, simulcast around the world, featured 43 speakers and panelists sharing their thoughts on globalization, world affairs, and the economy.
3rd Place at National Security Innovation Competition: Cadets Paul (Mitch) Johnson, Brandon Clumpner, and Ethan Naylor won 3rd place along with a $2,500 cash prize at the Seventh Annual National Security Innovation Competition held at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs. The competition serves as a venue to link college students conducting cutting-edge research on concepts and technologies intended to meet national security and defense capability needs, with government and industry consumers. The Cadets presented their work titled “Mobile Flame Suppression System (MFSS): An Autonomous Approach to Individualized Flame Injury Protection" which is also their ME496 Mechanical Engineering Design Senior Capstone Project. Winners of 1st and 2nd Place were PhD research projects, making West Point’s team the top undergraduate project at this international competition for the second year in a row.
Student Workshop on Civil-Military Operations (SWCMO). 
The Center for the Study of Civil-Military Operations held the first annual Student Workshop on Civil-Military Operations (SWCMO). The event allowed nearly 100 EV482 cadets and guest students from Middlebury College to intensely examine Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR
Energy Security Research: Cadet Mary Prakel and Dr. John Farr from the Center for Nation Reconstruction and Capacity Development and the Department of Systems Engineer briefed their methodology on conducting cost benefit analysis for energy security projects in Washington. Based upon comments from the presentations, the methodology is being refined and comments addressed and will be briefed to Army leadership this summer for final approval.
American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Mid-Atlantic Section Meeting: 
Three cadets conducting independent research (NE489) travelled to the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Mid-Atlantic Section Meeting at the NYC College of Technology in Brooklyn, NY to present their work. The cadets delivered poster presentations: Cadet Chris Malachosky on Optical Flash from Nuclear Weapons, Cadet Chris Antweiler on Dry Storage Casks for Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel, and Cadet Brandon Passons on Diffraction Enhanced Imaging using Accelerator-generated X-ray. All three cadets were recognized with the Best Student Poster Presentation Awards. The travel was funded by the Class of 67 Endowed Chair MACC Account.
UAS Capstone Project: Cadets Mario Turi and Matt Oechsel briefed the results of their capstone research project to MG William T. Crosby, the Army’s Program Executive Officer for Aviation, and to staff members from the Army Project Manager for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs), at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, AL. The project was prompted by costly mishaps caused by unmanned aircraft operator errors, which the cadets traced to the monotony of some UAS operations and resulting operator inattention. Cadets Turi and Oechsel, and along with their teammates Phil Hilaire and Chris Law, investigated approaches to the problem that involved both the human and machine components of the UAS, and ran an experiment to determine the ability of over-the-counter energy drinks to increase alertness in a UAS operation scenario. They recommended a commercially available alertness monitor currently used by long-distance Australian truck drivers as the best long-term solution.
IEEE Green Technologies Conference: Cadet Brian Severson, accompanied by LTC Dan Bennett, presented the accepted paper “Feasibility Study of Photovoltaic Panels in Military Temporary Housing Structures” at the IEEE 5th Annual Green Technologies Conference. This paper, as part of the Army’s Construction Engineering Research Laboratory’s (CERL) efforts, looks at ways to reduce the amount of energy consumed by temporary barracks structures, B Huts, and the resultant cost and inherent danger of providing fuel to Army outposts in deployed environments.
West Point Camporee 2013 STEM Outreach: Cadets and faculty from the Electronic Experimenter’s Group (ELEX) and EECS volunteered to support the 51st annual West Point Camporee. The cadets provided an interactive demonstration of common military robots that are currently fielded within the Army and included a challenge to recover inert, training-aid IEDs. The ELEX members also provided demonstrations of current club projects such as the ELEX Tri-color LED sign and Le Dominoux (LED dominoes).
Earth Week: 
The Energy & Environmental (E2O) Chain of Command led the Corps of Cadets in a celebration of Earth Week.
Research Presentation: Cadets Frank Arnold ‘14, Dan Blaine '15, Jay Trexler '14, Bobby Allibone '13, Jordan Smith '13, Tyler Federwisch '13, Tim Bowers '13, Cliff Crofford '13, from the departments of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Civil and Mechanical Engineering, and Systems Engineering presented to the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) in Huntsville, Al. The cadets spent over two hours presenting their work to members of SMDC's Directed Energy Directorate on the use of a high energy laser weapon system for the defense against mortar attacks.
IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications: At this conference,Cadet Stuart Baker presented a paper entitled “GPU Assisted Processing of Point cloud Data Sets for Ground Segmentation in Autonomous Vehicles” that described how graphics processors could improve the processing of data from LiDAR systems.
