Mendenhall Innovation Program
Integrate your engineering background and business savvy in this program coupling entrepreneurship and design.
Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design team, Row Cycle, (pictured above) took the Grand Prize and Commercial Potential award in the spring 2016 competition.
About the Program
The Mendenhall Innovation Program is named after Dr. Robert Mendenhall, founder of Las Vegas Paving Corporation. Throughout the years Dr. Mendenhall has inspired our students and committed his private support to start the program. With a natural drive for entrepreneurship, he launched America’s first recycled highway in the 1970’s, and has developed numerous other inventions that continue to benefit the construction industry and conserve natural resources.
Facilities
Students have a laboratory dedicated to providing them the space needed to create, invent, and design prototypes and/or competition apparatus in the Mendenhall Innovation & Design Laboratory. The lab is available for all disciplines in the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering and includes equipment ranging from air plasma cutters, band saws, 3D printers, lathes and osciliscopes. To see a complete list of what is available, see the Mendenhall Innovation & Design Lab Equipment list.
If you would like to see a listing of equipment in the lab, or utilize the lab for a class, please contact Dr. Pushkin Kachroo, pushkin@unlv.edu or 702-895-4926.
Contact Information
Program Coordinator
Pushkin Kachroo, Ph.D., P.E.
Office: SEB 3229
Mail Code: 4026
Phone: 702-895-4926
Fax: 702-895-4075
Email: pushkin@unlv.edu
Academic Programs
Minor in Technology Commercialization
The minor is intended for all undergraduate students within the College of Engineering. The purpose is to inspire, mentor, and foster future business leaders and innovators who have the potential to shape the future of technology and technological innovation on a global scale.
Certificate in Technology Commercialization
Open to all majors, the Certificate program provides students with the necessary foundational knowledge in technology commercialization and consists of 12 credit hours. Courses include topics such as Engineering, Economics, Entrepreneurship, and Business Plan Creation.
Certificate in Engineering Entrepreneurship
Open to all majors, the Engineering Entrepreneurship Certificate program prepares students to be successful engineering entrepreneurs by providing them with specific skills and knowledge that are most important to be successful in designing, developing, and marketing products and services in a financially and legally sound way. It is a 21 credit program that includes courses in diverse areas such as hands-on engineering fundamentals, engineering economics, lean start-up, and technology commercialization.
Fred & Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition
The Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design program is designed to further the economic diversification of Las Vegas and create technological and innovative entrepreneurs throughout Southern Nevada.
A capstone to each engineering student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in his/her program to create a practical, real-world solution to an engineering or computer science challenge.
Industry partners can get involved through the UNLV Rebel Program which provides tiered sponsorship opportunities for senior design projects.
UNLV Rebel Program
The Rebel Program is designed to create active industrial sponsorship of senior design projects. The program has a tiered sponsorship structure allowing for various levels of interaction between the sponsoring agencies and the students.
The program enables a company to recruit a senior design team to work on a problem of interest to them.
BENEFIT TO STUDENTS
- Networking within an industry
- Real-life engineering product development
- Real-life engineering design process cycle experience
- Application of class material to engineering problems
- Access to company resources
BENEFIT TO INDUSTRY SPONSORS
- Access to possible engineering hires for recruitment
- Needed engineering work accomplished
- Early training of future recruits
- Access to university resources for collaboration
- Networking with university researchers
If you are a company interested in finding out more about the UNLV Rebel Program or becoming a sponsor, please contact Dr. Pushkin Kachroo, pushkin@unlv.edu or 702-895-4926.
Junior Design Experience
Junior Design Experience is a project-based competition giving students the opportunity to hone their independent design and presentation skills in the early years of their academic careers. This unique hands-on exercise provides real-world experience and helps prepare them for their capstone class, Senior Design.