SAE Expands Virtual Learning Offerings

Looking for a more productive way to pass the time at home during the coronavirus pandemic than binge watching the latest Netflix series, completing a puzzle or reorganizing your closet?

How about expanding or freshening your professional skills? To this end, SAE International points out that it’s never been a better time to give distance learning a shot. The engineering organization has expanded its offerings to make such programs more enticing for both industry professionals and students.

More Classes and Services

In response to COVID-19, SAE says it has broadened its e-learning portfolio to provide hundreds of online courses taught by instructors from industry experts and academia.

The offerings cover a wide range of technical and business management topics. You name it, and SAE has a class for it. From engineering tools and methods to safety and accident reconstruction.

Manufacturing and materials to noise, vibration and harshness. Chassis and vehicle dynamics to powertrain tech. And, of course, there are plenty of programs on emerging technologies such as autonomous, connected and electric vehicles systems.

What About Kids?

SAE also has enhanced its A World in Motion (AWIM) program for kids, including free online learning modules for kindergarten thru 8th grade students.

The teacher-administered, industry volunteer-assisted program focuses on science, technology, engineering and math. The new e-learning modules provide access to content, resources and ideas for hands-on STEM experiences, according to SAE.

Students also can participate in 14 AWIM challenges, including new activities on cybersecurity and computer programming. SAE also holds collegiate design challenges and funds scholarships and other awards.

Launched about 30 years ago as part of the SAE Foundation, AWIM reaches more than 100,000 students per year. Contact awim@sae.org for more information. Through May 6, donations to the SAE Foundation of up to $20,000 will be matched by an anonymous donor.

More Online Offerings

SAE also is developing virtual career fairs and online versions of its events and conferences.

The organization’s WCX engineering conference in Detroit had been scheduled to start tomorrow at the renamed TCF Center (formerly Cobo Center). The annual event, which draws 9,000 engineers from around the world, was canceled last month, and TCF now has been transformed into a 900-bed emergency hospital for COVID-19 victims.

SAE International is providing access at no cost to standards that aid industry in supplying medical support during COVID-19. These benchmarks include specifications and recommended practices for transporting cargo on the main deck of passenger planes, providing medical flights and moving urgently needed medical supplies between countries.