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The North Carolina State University, College of Engineering, Precision Engineering Consortium Records contain annual and other reports, founding documents, slides, proposals, meeting minutes, correspondence, and electronic files including a video of the Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infared Interferometer. Topics include the American Society for Precision Engineering, the Academic Policy Board, and correspondence with private companies like Proctor and Gamble. Materials range in date from 1983 to 2020. The Precision Engineering Consortium was founded in 1982 with a $1.26 million grant from the Office of Naval Research. The Consortium was originally established entirely in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The Consortium was founded for research and to support growing a specialized workforce through doctoral students (who were designated fellows). Precision engineering supports the automation of previously labor-intensive processes in fields such as robotics, microelectronics, aerospace industries, defense industries, and national laboratories. Through scientific instrumentation, precision engineering allows for accurate measuring on a microinch (millionth of an inch) level. Housed on Centennial Campus, it includes faculty from Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as well as Materials Science and Engineering. Areas of focus include metrology (sensors and measurement systems), innovative precision fabrication processes (machining, grinding, polishing), and real-time process control (https://www.pec.ncsu.edu/about/, accessed 09/23/2020). Less

The records of the Pi Alpha Chapter (North Carolina State's chapter) of Pi Tau Sigma include correspondence, financial records, membership rosters, meeting minutes, and other general information about the chapter, its members, and its activities. This subgroup also contains some materials distributed by the national office of Pi Tau Sigma, primarily issues of their annual publication, The Condenser of Pi Tau Sigma. Pi Tau Sigma is the international mechanical engineering honor society, the purpose of which is to establish a means of fellowship and communication between individuals who study and practice mechanical engineering. North Carolina State's chapter, the Pi Alpha Chapter, was established in 1942, and is open to mechanical engineering students who either rank in the top 25% of their class as juniors, or top 33% as seniors. Graduate students in mechanical engineering at NC State whose undergratuate universities did not have a chapter of Pi Tau Sigma are also allowed to join. The Pi Alpha Chapter remained active at NC State as of 2008. Less