Forty-six middle school students traveled to the Austin on Saturday, February 26th. They attended the “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day” event at the University of Texas campus! In the morning, they were given a guided tour of the UT campus. Our students learned a great deal about the university and what it takes to get accepted to college. In the afternoon, all of our students participated in hands on/ STEM related activities held at the College of Engineering and Technology. The following are some of the activities they participated:
- Binary numbers- students were given a sheet with code and had to break down the binary number code
- Traffic engineers- students were given different trafic situation on a computer and they had to time the lights on the streets to get the maximum number of cars passing without causing accidents.
- Solar and wind energy- they were shown a house with solar panel and a wind turbine that was mounted on the top of the house. The porch light lit to the amount of wind that was causing the turbine to turn.
- Mechanical to electrical energy- students had to ride a bike in order to generate enough energy for a radio and a panel of lights to turn on
- Earthquake structure- students had to construct a tower from straws, string, paperclips, and toothpicks. When done, a nine ounce sand bag was placed on top. The tower that held the most weight, won.
- Satelite- how satelites orbit around the earch, and when sending out a signal they have to hit a certain spot everytime.
Our next trip to UT will be on March 26th will be all day hands on activities.We look forward to this exciting event.