“It’s the one thing I remembered about Francis Tuttle. It definitely made me want to come here.”
A group of eighth-grade students enjoyed an exciting morning of flying, building, racing, and rocket launching during the Engineering Challenge at Francis Tuttle Technology Center.
The students from middle schools within the Francis Tuttle district visited the Danforth Campus on Oct. 2 for a morning of games and activities all based in STEM education. Francis Tuttle students from the Engineering and Computer Science academies led middle school students through each challenge with the hope of inspiring them to enroll in academies once they are high school sophomores.
“It’s inspirational, because it’s a challenge,” Aditi Divakar, an Edmond Memorial sophomore in the Computer Science Academy, said.
Divikar worked with students on coding robots to complete an obstacle course. It was a lot of trial and error, with students entering the distances and angles they wanted the robots to go, watching the results of their entry, and trying again to get the robot to move further toward its main goal.
Divakar was once a middle school student on the other side of that interaction as she took part in the Engineering Challenge. This was the 18th edition of the annual event that aims to pique kids’ interest in STEM.
“It’s the one thing I remembered about Francis Tuttle,” she said. “It definitely made me want to come here.”
Engineering Challenge attendees build at the event and bring pre-built pieces to compete in various activities. Bridges made of popsicle sticks are tested for how much pressure they can sustain, and students launch mousetrap cars to see how far and how straight they can go.
They built straw towers and boats to see how much weight they could hold, built and flew gliders, and designed their own rockets made of one-liter bottles that were launched in the Danforth Campus atrium. Johnston Strecker, an Edmond Memorial senior in the Engineering Academy, said the activities bring middle school students together to work in teams, something that is important for the schoolwork he does every day.
“What happens in a lot of these activities that you don’t notice at first is it helps them to figure out how to work as a team,” Strecker said. “That’s very helpful, because the a lot of the work you do here as a student is collaborative.”
Last year, Strecker said his younger brother attended the Engineering Challenge, and it was fun to help him along as he explored STEM subjects. Teaching the younger kids is also helpful for his own academic journey.
“Last year, I worked in the coding area, and honestly, some of those kids probably knew more about coding than I did,” he said. “So it helps them learn, but also it helps me think more about my own skills.”
Students attended the event from the following middle schools: Heartland, Cooper, Cashion, Central Creek, Deer Creek, Cimarron, Mayfield, Oakdale, Capps, and Crescent.