The Technology Evolutionary Components Center at the University of California, Riverside works to provide students with hands-on experience engineering solutions to real-world problems, thereby preparing them for careers in the modern workforce.
Problems like climate change, disease, and hunger are difficult to tackle in part because they require multidisciplinary solutions. To help students work on these problems, we are developing the MEC system, a library of interdisciplinary "building blocks" that can be clicked together to create functional research instruments for a wide variety of different applications.
In the TEC Center, students use MECs to build, test, refine, and share tools for supporting real-world research in important fields like alternative fuels production, drug discovery, and toxicology. Since the TEC Center was founded in 2015, over 50 UC Riverside undergraduates have received an immersive training experience in the Center.
TEC Center News
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The MEC system in the news
The MEC system was featured in Gizmodo (who illustrated their story with the awesome LEGO scientists shown above) and Engadget.
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MEC system featured on UCR Today
Our MEC “building blocks” were featured on UCR Today in a great article by Sarah Nightingale.
Sarah’s team also made a cool video about the MEC system:
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Paper on the MEC system published in PLOS ONE
Doug Hill’s paper “MECs: ‘Building Blocks’ for Creating Biological and Chemical Instruments” was published in PLOS ONE. Thanks to our coauthors Lindsey Anderson, Casey Hill, Afshin Mostaghim, and Victor G. J. Rodgers for their help!
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Congressman Mark Takano visits the lab
Thanks to Congressman Mark Takano for visiting the TEC Center! As the co-chair of the Congressional Maker Caucus, Congressman Takano was interested in visiting the TEC Center and meeting our students. He called our lab “a makerspace on steroids,” and we wholeheartedly agree!
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Madeline Mullen featured in Inside UCR
TEC Center alumna Madeline Mullen was featured in Inside UCR. Madeline developed a Coulter Counter component in the TEC Center; now she’s a medical student at the UC Riverside School of Medicine and the recipient of the David W. and Nina P. Mitchell School of Medicine Award scholarship.
Thanks to the supporters of the TEC Center!
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The Center for Bioengineering Research at the University of California, Riverside
Development of the MEC system was supported by Prof. Jerome Schultz and the Center for Bioengineering Research at the University of California, Riverside.
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The National Science Foundation
Development of the MEC system was supported by the Instrument Development for Biological Research (IDBR) program of the National Science Foundation under award DBI-1353974.
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Sophomore STEM Success Awards from the Office of Undergraduate Education at the University of California, Riverside
Three of our students— undergrads Raymond Iu (Bioengineering), Hayden Karich (Mechanical Engineering), and Manoel Tamraz (Bioengineering)—received the Sophomore STEM Success Award from the Office of Undergraduate Education at the University of California, Riverside.
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Best Buy Foundation
Thank you to the Best Buy Foundation for supporting the TEC Center!