At USF, a concentration of TECO team members engineering inspiration for students

And voila! We have power. TECO's Jerrick Celzo helps illuminate an important concept for Engineering Expo visitors. — And voila! We have power. TECO’s Jerrick Celzo helps illuminate an important concept for USF Engineering Expo visitors.

Who had more fun at this year’s University of South Florida Engineering Expo – the approximately 11,000 visitors, most of them young students, or the volunteers from TECO who once again flipped on lightbulbs of excitement about the future for the next generation?

Maybe someday someone will invent an experiment to find out.

Until that happens, TECO’s expo participants will have memories of another rewarding experience. Spread through and around the USF College of Engineering on Feb. 17 and 18, it again provided a forum for TECO team members – many of them graduates of that very college – to interact directly with young students, teachers, parents and others. Hailing mainly from TECO Peoples Gas and the company’s Energy Delivery and Alternative Fuel Vehicle departments, our volunteers presented a variety of displays highlighting electrical safety, energy savings, how Tampa Electric reliably brings power to the community and more.

TECO's Josh Rogers puts the pieces together for Expo attendees. — TECO’s Josh Rogers puts the pieces together for Expo attendees.

Among the most popular exhibits from TECO was the stationary bicycle that, when pedaled, generates electrical current to illuminate a row of light bulbs.

“The kids love the lightbulb bicycle – it’s a classic,” said Jeremy Brown, engineer II with Tampa Electric and coordinator of this year’s appearance by his company at the expo. “In an instant, you can see how fundamental ideas go from textbook concepts in the students’ minds to the real world. And it just so happens that learning about this, and about a whole range of ways that engineering informs how we serve our customers, can be a lot of fun.”

Running a TECO table are Brian Buckley, center, and Minh Ly at right.

Whether it’s about connecting dots for students by fostering a ground-level understanding of how electricity works – or by supplying them with ideas they can take home to share with their families about TECO’s commitment to creating a better future (through things like Energy Planner, AFVs and more) – the 2017 Engineering Expo was a connection between much bigger dots as well: the decades-strong connections between TECO and USF, between our company and the community, and between students and their futures in a multitude of ways to make them light up with smiles.