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!