Engineering Ambassadors visit Peters Township High School

What better day to visit a chemistry classroom than Mole Day? Well lucky for our Engineering Ambassadors thats exactly what day it was! One of the teachers even made MOLasses cookies for the class in celebration! Now this wasn't the only perk the students were in for, they also had the opportunity to learn about engineering and participate in hands-on activities with the EAs!

Some of the chemistry classes received presentations from Kathleen Prilutski and Zach Meharey where they put their knowledge of protons to work to create circuits using play-doh and circuit components such as LEDs, battery packs and buzzers.


Brad Wile and Ashlea Krupa visited the other chemistry classes to talk about buoyancy and boat design to see how many pennies they could keep afloat using basic materials found around the house such as foil, straws, and popsicle sticks. The EAs tested the activity the night before and were able to keep 10 pennies afloat, the students blew them out of the water by keeping over 300 hundred pennies afloat in their superb boat designs!

The physics classes were in for a real treat, as Anna Rish and Matt DiNuzzo premiered a brand new presentation and activity, the Red Bull Space Jump! The presentation detailed the amazing engineering feats that made the space jump possible, then students were tasked with designing and building their own parachutes from tissue paper, foil, string, and a washer acting as the passenger. Designs were tested for flight time, with the longest flight time equaling the safest landing! The designs were innovative and unique providing a friendly competition among teams.

We wrapped up the day with a presentation about engineering careers, using the Pittsburgh Children's hospital to highlight the versatile and important roles of the engineers involved in building and maintaining the hospital.

EA's Second visit of the year brought us to James Buchanan Middle School

Today we are visiting James Buchanan Middle School, talking with 225 students about the awesome opportunities available to engineers. We started the morning early, meeting at 5:30am! It took two hours to see the sun come up, but no matter, we were energized from our Dunkin Donuts coffee and ready to share our passion for engineering!

Amy Szabo, Kylie Sheplock, and Kevin Zhou taught half the 8^th grade class about circuits, using the squishy circuits activity to reinforce their lesson. Who doesn’t love playing with play-doh? Success was evident by the constant buzz of the speakers going off throughout the classroom. Some teams even tried combining materials to make a mega circuit complete with LEDs, battery packs, and buzzers!

Amy Szabo helps students build their circuit (left). Squishy circuits in action (right).

Students ask questions during the 8th grade Assembly

Just next door, Alfredo Ramirez, Randy Schur, and Kathleen Prilutski talked about alternative energy sources, from solar and geo thermal, to nuclear and wind energy. They used the wind turbine kits to have students prototype and test different turbine designs. Students tested whether 2, 3 or 4 blades would be more efficient. Each design was tested using a box fan and teams counted how many washers their turbine could lift in a bucket. Other features that were tested included the material the blades are made of, plastic vs balsa wood, and the pitch angle of the blade. We learned that three blades are better than two, and 30 degrees is the optimal pitch angle for lifting the most washers.

The day ended with an assembly of the entire 8^th grade class to discuss the many options that lie ahead for the future engineers sitting before us. From manufacturing the delicious Hershey’s chocolate bar, to designing a roller coaster, from testing prosthetics to improve the life of amputees, to solving the world’s energy crisis, we learned that engineers have a wide variety of careers available to them.

Thanks to James Buchanan Middle School! We had an amazing and fun filled day! 

EA made their first visit of the school year to the Milton Hershey School

Today we visited the 8^th grade class at the Milton Hershey School. We kicked things off with an assembly to talk about career opportunities available to engineers. With a school overlooking the Hershey Theme Park, the careers talk was perfectly themed talking about how engineers make Hershey Park possible. From designing the roller coasters, organizing efficient lines to reduce wait times, to concocting delicious treats to snack on, engineers are responsible for every ounce of fun.

First visit of the school year was a great success!

After the assembly we split up to talk with all three 8^th grade science classrooms. Shane Haydt and Kathleen Prilutski got the chance to go more in depth about the workings of roller coasters, learning about kinetic and potential energy.  Students then were challenged to design and build their own roller coaster, using foam tubing and marble passengers, an extra challenge was that it had to have a loop! After finishing the coasters, students took a ride on a virtual roller coaster made by Shane himself. The Oohs and Aaahs sounded off as if the students were riding a real coaster!

Boni Li teaches students about pitch angle to improve the efficiency
of their wind turbines

Amy Szabo and Mike Coia taught their classes about circuits and then had students design their own “squishy circuits” using play-doh, batteries, and various sensors.

Alfredo Ramirez and Boni Li taught their classes about alternative energy sources. Ending the talk on wind energy, students then tackled the challenge of designing the most efficient wind turbine. Testing the optimum number of blades and the optimum pitch angle student's found success and were able to lift over 20 washers with the power of their wind turbine!

A big Thanks to Milton Hershey for the Giant Chocolate Bars they gave us as a Thank you! It even inspired a trip to Chocolate World, which is right across the street. Some say the best part was the milkshakes, but I say it was the dancing cows teaching me how Hershey bars are made!