Kids get a taste of engineering

Summer is not yet half over and some kids are itching to go back. A few of them have already gone back. This week, a group of elementary and middle school students from the Washington School District is participating in a summer program to sharpen their engineering skills. The program is known as the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program, and is administered by the University of Iowa?s College of Engineering.

There are between 30 and 40 kids enrolled in the week-long course, which runs Monday through Friday this week from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. The youngsters going into elementary school are in one group and those who are going into middle school are in another group.

Nancy Clausen teaches the class for the elementary students. She said the purpose of STEM is to whet the kids? appetite for science, engineering and related fields. The classes require the students to build various contraptions and then test them out to see how well they work.

?It?s pretty intense,? said Clausen.

Dave McLaughlin teaches the class for the incoming middle school students. McLaughlin does not use a textbook, nor does he assign his students homework.

?We do different projects that apply the four categories,? said McLaughlin. ?We build bridges. We build rockets. We?ve built solar-powered cars. We move pretty quickly, too. I have a great group of kids. ?

The kids all built a rocket which they were going to fire Wednesday afternoon. The rockets are 2-liter bottles which are filled with water and compressed air. The compressed air supplies the power and the water supplies the mass the air pushes against, which is what allows the rocket to travel so far and so high. McLaughlin said his class would experiment with different amounts of water in the bottle, from one-quarter full of water to one-half full.

The older kids built bridges out of just paper and Scotch tape. Ninth-grader Kyle Basten and seventh grader Kyle Anderson built a paper bridge about 20 inches wide that could support two tennis balls in the middle. Basten is the son of Tom and Sue Basten. Anderson is the son of Shane and Teresa Anderson.

In the next few days, the kids will build a small catapult. The device will employ the spring in a mousetrap to fling a ping pong ball. They will also visit the high school where they will get an introduction in three-dimensional computer aided design and drafting.

The students built towers out of paper and tape. Samuel Patterson, one of the many seventh graders present, said he modeled his tower after the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.

?I made the tower a cone shape,? said Patterson, son of Todd and Rene Patterson.

Anderson said he modeled his tower after the Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) in Chicago.

Patterson said his favorite class in school is math, and he is glad he gets to use it during the summer program.

Anderson said his favorite activity so far was assembling the solar-powered cars. The cars only work when they are exposed to direct sunlight. He and his classmates assembled the cars from kits. They had the option of painting their cars or of modifying the specifications. Anderson painted his car but saw no need to tinker with the specs.

Jacob Crider, going into ninth grade, said he has had fun so far, even more than during the school year.

?We don?t get homework and it?s not as long,? said Crider, son of Mark and Dana McDole.

Reid Basten remarked that the summer program was ?like having science all day.?

McLaughlin reminded them they he gives them a little recess each day.

Reid, brother of Kyle Basten and also son of Tom and Sue Basten, said his favorite classes are science and reading. He had Clausen as a science teacher, and he said he looked forward to going to her class during the school year.

Kyle Basten remarked that he doesn?t mind being in school this week because he didn?t have much else to do. He summarized the program as ?a summer school where you get to build stuff. And we still get school lunches.?

Graeham Beezley, son of Darin and Joelle Beezley, said the experience has been fun.

?I?ve learned we can do these things that look complicated but which are simpler than they look,? said Beezley.

Kyle Schindler?s favorite classes are math and science, so the summer program is right up his alley.

?I?ve learned how to estimate the length of a board,? said Schindler, son of Dawn and Greg Schindler.