“The student experience has been so advanced here, and I see it in your faces as you’re describing these projects,” said Chancellor Rich Lyons during a speech. (Photo by Adam Lau/Berkeley Engineering)SOAR labs have liftoff at Richmond Field Station
UC Berkeley Engineering launched the Student Organization Applied Research (SOAR) labs at UC’s Richmond Field Station (RFS) at a festive gathering this past weekend.
The event celebrates a two-year upgrade to workspaces that enables student organizations to design, build and develop projects using high-end technology and equipment that improves both efficiency and safety. The SOAR lab is the first large-scale fabrication facility for student organizations at the UC Berkeley campus. The innovative workspaces are located at the heart of Richmond Field Station, a 175-acre campus just 15 minutes from the university’s main campus.
With a $3 million investment by Berkeley Engineering, student organizations representing more than 700 students are now able to work with dedicated staff in an ecosystem that includes more than 40 world-class research units and more than 20 startup companies.
Competition teams are better-equipped to fabricate everything from solar-powered cars to Kármán-crossing rockets to student-built bikes. Such activities provide students with critical hands-on experience while representing UC Berkeley across the nation.
“These are activities that we’ve long strived to support here at the Richmond Field Station,” said Mark Asta, interim dean of engineering, in a speech. “This is a story of the Berkeley community coming together to support our students, and it is one of the proudest experiences I have been part of at Cal.”
Fueled by hot dogs and ice cream, participating student organizations showcased their work to attendees, including Chancellor Rich Lyons, Asta, Richmond Field Station Director Tarek Zohdi and other campus leaders.
People were able to tour this new hub for creativity, with signs demarcating zones for everything from “Motor Dyno Testing” to “Welding and Metal Fabrication” to “CNC/Machining.” Among SOAR’s many upgrades: a downdraft table that sucks in dust, a composite curing oven to bake car molds, and a dynamometer for testing engines.
In terms of “immersive learning,” Lyons noted in his remarks that “it doesn’t get a lot more vivid than what happens here.”
“The student experience has been so advanced here, and I see it in your faces as you’re describing these projects,” the chancellor added. “You’re excited, and that’s why we do what we do, right?”
