About 120 middle school students from Akron Public Schools took part in hands-on activities Thursday at the University of Akron to introduce them to science and engineering.
Members of the National Society of Black Engineers, a student organization at UA, designed the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) activities program in an effort to inspire students to consider careers in engineering. There are 60 NSBE members on campus.
The eighth-graders didn’t believe UA student Chevonne Anderson when she told them they could make ice cream from scratch.
“It’s going to happen, believe me,” said the chemical engineering student. “I made it yesterday and I made it in summer camp when I was 5 years old.”
She put together the ingredients on the screen: 1 cup of half and half, 6 spoonfuls of sugar, 1 spoonful of vanilla and ice.
The students were all smiles as they left the activity room eating their homemade ice cream on their way to the next activity.
There were five activity rooms set up on the third floor of the student union as NSBE students helped the eighth-graders with projects that included a biomedical engineering activity of repairing broken bones made of plastic foam with rubber bands and paper clips to see who had the strongest bone after the break.
Other assignments
For computer engineering, the students created a video game by learning computer coding.
For mechanical engineering, students made K’NEX cars. For civil engineering, they built towers made of spaghetti and marshmallows.
“We have to build a structure to see how high we can make it without it falling down,” said Dakota Baechel, 14, of East Community Learning Center. “We just keep adding pyramids.”
Jennings student Bivek Subba, 14, said, “The most important thing is that you need a strong base to make it higher.”
Drake Smalley, a mechanical engineering student at UA, walked around the room to help the students as they built the towers.
“You’re going to need a little more support there at the base,” he told one group. “I like the communication and teamwork here.”
It was a 30-minute task. The structures ranged from 7 inches to 36 inches.
Doucet Creamer, a civil engineering student, measured the structures.
“I noticed some of the groups didn’t use the spaghetti as efficiently as they could have and could have built the structure using only half the materials, but that’s always the issue in engineering,” he said. “Some of the teams had really good planning and others had good communication and problem-solving skills. I’m proud of all of the projects. They all did a good job.”
Building cars
In the mechanical engineering activity, the students built K’NEX cars and competed to see which one could go the farthest distance. Each team was given a bag of K’NEX building items for the cars.
Shaylynn Green, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student, led the activity.
“Have any of you ever built a car?”
East student Johathan Knox, 13, said yes.
“I’ve made cars out of Legos before,” he said. “It seems pretty easy, these just connect differently.”
Innes student Javon Lee, 14, said, “I think these parts are connecting better than Legos do; I’m getting used to it.”
East student Sy’Riya Varner, 13, said, “It seems easy; there’s room for a lot of creativity,” as she started grabbing parts.
There were coed groups as well as all-male and all-female groups.
When 14-year-olds Da’Veonna Nash of East, Jeyden Samuels of Roswell Kent and Marcaja Turner of Buchtel Community Learning Center reached a point where their car was functional, they ran over to the cardboard box runway to test it out. It went a little to the left.
“We need it to go straight,” Jeyden shouted. “Do we need to adjust the smaller wheels in the back?”
They ran back to the table to make more adjustments.
Competitive group
The most competitive group was the all-male team from STEM Middle School.
“Don’t let anyone see it,” Ethane Mewborn, 14, said, cautioning his teammates as they scooped up their car after testing it in the open area of the room. “I didn’t want anyone copying what we did. I was just trying to protect our success in putting the car together.”
The three said they had built cars in STEM school before, but it was still a challenging activity.
“When you add the driving wheels and it’s bigger in the back, it causes the car to go farther,” said Ryan Oderkirk, 14. “We did pretty good, but hoped to do better.”
They were disappointed they did not win.
“There’s always room for improvement,” said Maliq Dancy, 13, also from STEM.
Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or mmiller@thebeaconjournal.com