Posted on May 16, 2019
Lehigh Valley Students Learn What Engineers Do By Exploring
Volunteers at Victaulic are sharing their passion for engineering design with Lehigh Valley high school students. Exploring Post 1919 is a club providing hands-on experiences to help students understand what engineers do. Sponsored by Victaulic, Post 1919 meets twice a month at the US headquarters in the Lehigh Valley with the support of 15 professional engineers who have fun engineering and want to share their love of science with others. How did you discover engineering?
The Design Process – Fun Engineering
Engineering challenges offered at Post 1919 introduce Lehigh Valley students to the design process by asking them to consider design constraints, brainstorm solutions, and build prototype devices. Staying true to the engineering process, students discover engineering by testing their prototypes and redesigning solutions using lessons learned along the way. Students learn that engineering design is iterative and involves trying ideas that don’t always turn out as expected. By experimenting the students realize that failure can be fun engineering!
Building Is Engineering
In October, students had fun working in teams to build chairs that stood at least 10 inches tall and supported the bodyweight of a team member for 3 seconds using only cardboard.
November offered mechanical fun engineering. Students had to design and construct a truss bridge using only balsa wood sticks and hot glue. To test their creations, students loaded their bridges with weights until the bridges failed. The winning design supported the most weight.
In December, Students used electronic breadboards, power sources, phototransistors, comparators, regulators, and resistors to build simple sensor circuits. As student teams completed their circuit boards they used Arduino devices and laptop computers to create and upload simple programs.
Sharing is Engineering
Victaulic continues to invest in best-in-class engineers from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines. It is a pleasure to share What Engineers Do and support the development of Lehigh Valley students who may one day deliver the next great advancement in commercial construction. We hope you have fun engineering with us!
If you are a Lehigh Valley student and would like to Discover Engineering, use the form below to tell us where to send your invitation.
