Just to orient you, Clarkson is a smaller private R2 research university. I believe it typically has around 2700 undergrads and another 1100 grad students (at the Potsdam campus), making it sort of like an LAC in undergrad size. Potsdam the town is small, but there are some other colleges in the area they apparently might socialize with. The nearest really large cities are actually in Canada, Ottawa and Montreal.
It has long been known for its strength in engineering, and in fact is #11 on the per capita version of this list of top feeders to Engineering PhD programs:
You have to take that with a bit of a grain of salt, because over half the class ends up graduating with an Engineering degree (and it is more like 2/3rds if you include CS and Engineering Management), which is going to boost its per capita score (same thing with other similar Engineering-focused colleges on that list).
But still, that means despite being a smaller university it has a very robust engineering program, lots of engineering alums, and so on.
In terms of vibe, you always hear a mix of things, but I have heard most people say it is pretty academically challenging but also supportive, collaborative, friendly–generally the sorts of things you tend to hear about smaller but academicky schools.
Just to give you an idea, here is a brief conversation where a couple parents were talking about why their kids chose Clarkson. These are pretty typical comments from what I have seen:
Anyway, I just thought of it when you were describing what you were looking for. Maybe the location is a deal-breaker, though. Entirely up to your kid.
Edit:
Oh, and this is their Computer Engineering Major page. Again, it strikes me as really talking about the sorts of things your kid is looking for: