The City College of New York won second prize in the Region 1 IEEE GOLD Conference on April 25 - April 26, 2008. The conference was hosted by Farleigh Dickinson University’s IEEE Student Branch. CCNY’s senior design group worked nearly two semesters to prepare for the competition, which opened on Friday evening. The Saturday schedule was intense, with a Student Paper Contest, the Micro Mouse competition, multiple training sessions, a career fair, a presentation by Dr. Gregory H. Olsen, and the Award Dinner. The presentation by Dr. Olsen’s covered his remarkable experience as a voyager to the International Space Station (ISS), and he was the third private citizen to orbit the Earth. The conference was also a significant networking event, with many participants being either student leaders or young professionals. Besides CCNY, other participants included The College of New Jersey, the College of Staten Island, Suffolk University, Cooper Union, and Farleigh Dickinson, as well many other colleges. The Student Paper Contest and the Micro Mouse Competition were the two major attractions of the conference. The paper contest offers undergraduate IEEE Student Member opportunities to exercise and improve both written and verbal communication skills.

The Micro Mouse Contest is a technological competition dedicated to the creation of an automatic "machine" that could autonomously explore a maze, reach its centre and eventually find the shortest path between the start and the end.