High School Students enjoying engineering at BC

We had about 60 kids from Tehachapi High School, Bakersfield High School, Centennial High School, Ridgeview High School and Shafter High School attend the BC Engineering Open House on April 5, 2013. Thank you to all the STEM folks who made this happen, particularly Liz Rozell and Darren Willis.

Pam Gomez, CTE Advisor, talked about reasons for choosing BC and matriculation; Cynthia Quintanilla, STEM Counselor, and the STEM Transfer Mentors (Kevin Galloway, Travis Burns, Jennifer Head, and Corey Ferdinand) discussed majoring in STEM at BC; the three NASA-Spectrometer teams talked about their projects they will be presenting to NASA in Montana next month; and Rageshwar Goldberg talked about the A+ Scholar program.

There were 5 hands-on project activities that were fun to do but also had a serious side.

1. Materials Science Engineering – Designing an edible scale

What a neat idea! This session was led by Liz Rozell, Dean of STEM, and Jason Dixon, Manufacturing faculty, and involved students using edible materials to create a balance. In Materials Science projects the students got to learn the properties (mechanical, electrical, thermal, magnetic, and optical) of the materials they were working with. For example, the edible scale students had to consider the mechanical properties of ductility, which is the ability of a material to elongate a considerable extent before rupture, and plasticity, which is the ability of a material to remain permanently deformed after release of stress.

Engineering Day April 5 2013–Sonya Christian at the Material Science Lab

Engineering Day April 5 2013 –Liz Rozell and Jason Dixon

2. Projectile Launch

This session was led by Binal Mathew, president of the Engineers Club, and involved having students use a Styrofoam block, ping pong ball, clips, fasteners, rubber bands, and 3 feet of duct tape to design from scratch a projectile to launch a ping pong ball 4’ 6”.

Here in the picture you can see Liz Rozell, Binal Mathew, and a student from Centennial High School.

Engineering Day April 5 2013 –Lizz Rozell and Binal Mathew

3. Structural Design

Participants were challenged to design the tallest possible structure which would support a load. However, the structure had to be built from wooden skewers and soft Jolly Ranchers. Many of the structures collapsed once loaded, but a stellar structure did prevail!

Engineering Day April 5 2013 — Structural Design Project

4. CAD – Solidworks

Darren Willis, Industrial Drawing faculty, challenged students to develop a three dimensional object in Solidworks, a commonly used drafting software in engineering. The students who participated are in Project Lead the Way (PLTW) at the high schools and have been exposed to Solidworks, but it was quite the challenge using the simulation features.

Engineering Day April 5 2013 — Solidworks with Darren Willis

5. Pneumatic / Automation

Students, working in groups, assembled and programmed an automated process with integrated pneumatics. Manny Fernandez, Electronics faculty, provided each group with state-of-the-art equipment that accurately represents assembly processes used in industry. Because of the students’ background in robotics, they were quick studies and met the design challenge Manny set before them. Don Wilmot, Bakersfield High School PLTW instructor, was just blown away by the entire design!