December Engineering Challenge Results

Each month, our students will have the opportunity to compete in our after-school Engineering Challenge.

The goals of the Challenge include:

  1. providing students an opportunity to experience authentically and firsthand the process of engineering as they work as engineers to complete a design challenge
  2. providing students an opportunity to work as a group to collaborate and communicate to achieve a common goal
  3. providing students an opportunity to compete as an academic team in a different type of competition than our yearly science fair, thus expanding the opportunitites for students to gain recognition for their accomplishments in science and related STEM disciplines.

The December Challenge was to create a lantern with a heat-driven, rotating shade. Students used one tea light as a heat source, and then designed shades that had a turbine at the top, such that when the hot air rose to the top, it hit the blades of the turbine and thus spun the lamp shade. The lamp had to turn a minimum number of times, and winners were chosen based on the fastest rotations per minute (rpm). The winners are listed below.

Thank you to Anna Cotton (Alt Ed Science), Dana Munn (Science), Michael Lavers (Math), and Chris Connors (Art) for working with me as a team to plan and provide these opportunities.

–Natalie Munn

 

Some additional participants that almost hit the minimum of three rotations: