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!

UTC hosts Engineering Ambassadors at WPI

This past weekend, some of our new Engineering Ambassadors from Penn State visited Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts for the annual UTC Engineering Ambassadors Workshop. This was the first time the event has been held at WPI, and although it was a longer drive than usual, it was well worth the trip! New EAs from Penn State, U Conn, WPI, and RPI learned valuable communication skills mentored by their school’s veteran EAs. All students had the opportunity to participate in leadership training, where the EAs had to “jump rope as one” and compete to build the tallest balloon tower using only balloons, tape, and their best MacGyver skills.

The tallest balloon tower!

Christine Haas and Melissa Marshall rocked teaching, but one thing we’ve learned is that no one wants to come on stage AFTER an EA. This held true as the veteran EAs, led by Penn State’s Kacie Long, gave us valuable insights in how to give and receive constructive feedback. Did I mention they did this by reenacting American Idol’s Simon, Randy, and Paula, complete with auditioning speakers. It was insightful, energizing, informative and best of all, full of laughs!

Our new EA’s that participated include:

Randy Schur, Brad Wile,
Kevin Prince-Anokye, Lola Buonomo, Hannah Seeger, Lisa Meier,
Alfredo Ramirez, John Workinger,
Mike Coia, Lexi Greene, Beth Milligan, and Chelsea Walker

In addition to the skills learned and presentations that were created, our new EAs found time to let loose, creating an EA music video to “Gangnam Style” and “Hoedown, Throwdown” to appeal to the younger generation’s musical side. Video coming soon! 

2011-2012 in Review

Check out the amazing “Year in Review” video created by our very own Lauren Murphy!

Penn State hosts EA National Workshop

A map of attending institutions, including current partner
schools in yellow and new members in blue.

This summer Penn State hosted the first ever National Engineering Ambassadors Workshop. Attendees included 16 schools from across the country, our current partner schools, and several special guests from industry and academia.  The goal of this workshop was to share the Engineering Ambassador program with other schools interested in either starting their own program or improving an existing ambassador program. Students learned critical communication skills and participated in leadership training while academic advisors learned about how to successfully launch the program.

Student pairs from each school used the new assertion-evidence presentation style to develop a middle or high school presentation on the topic of their choice. Students spent many hours working with mentors from current programs to perfect their presentations and after a day of practice and critiques on Saturday. With Sunday came 20 presentations, from “Engineering the Olympics” to “Robotics in the Movies.”  The audience was delighted and awed, not only with the impressive communication skills, but also with the energy and passion each team showed for sharing their personal love of engineering.

J & J Medal Awarded to Penn State Engineering Ambassadors

The Penn State Engineering Ambassadors program has been named the winner of the 2012 Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies Inc. Medal by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for its efforts in diversity and inclusiveness. 

A note from Johnson & Johnson states that the Engineering Ambassadors are being recognized  "for empowering student representatives through the development of communication and leadership skills that are critical in their role as Engineering Ambassadors and for their future professional success; for providing outreach presentations at middle schools and high schools to encourage careers in engineering and to recruit more women into the field; and for sharing the program’s success with other universities."

A special Thank You to Dr. Mary Frecker for nominating the Engineering Ambassadors Program for this award. The award will be presented at the ASME Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition on Nov. 11 in Houston, Texas.


See the write up by Penn State Live : Engineering Ambassadors win Johnson & Johnson medal