The BEST robotics program is looking for mentors to help the high school teams with their robot design and build. The teams will work from Kickoff Saturday, September 24 through finish on Game Day Saturday, November 5.
Each high school based team is provided a kit of parts and raw materials to design and fabricate a robot. Only parts supplied in the kit may be used and the robot must be able to perform various specified tasks on a predetermined game floor. They only have six weeks from ‘go’ to ‘game day’ to get it all done. Adult mentors help them through the creative ideas, design and construction processes. As a Mentor, you help students understand technical concepts and principles, provide team building experiences which encourage abstract thought, self-directed learning, and decision making and facilitate students’ learning process rather than accomplish the work for them.
Interested? For ‘The BEST Reason’ video and the 2011 game teaser:
Our 13th annual Engineering Expo will be held February 26th 2011, and it’s time to start getting plans underway. All members are invited to join the Expo planning committee.
Meeting schedule:
Monday September 27, 5:45 pm at Panera (Central & Hillside).
Wednesday October 20, 5:30 pm at Il Vicino (Douglas & Oliver)
SWE is partnering with Habitat for Humanity for 2 days of the Women Build, September 18 and October 9. We have 20 slots reserved for each day (10 morning and 10 afternoon). September 18th will be heavy construction while October 9 will be cleaning and landscaping.
Sign up on the Habitat website http://www.wichitahabitat.org/WomenBuild2010.html in the pink box in the middle of the page. Choose one of the dates that SWE has reserved and put SWE in comment box. If you have trouble with the website, email WomenBuild@wichitahabitat.org or call Jen Root at 269-0755 and tell her you are with SWE.
The Women Build house will be in Edgebrook Village, on Jackson; between Broadway and Arkansas and between 32nd and 33rd streets.
Directions: Broadway to 33rd Street North, go west on 33rd to Jackson (Jackson is 1 block east of Arkansas Street).
Parking: There is a large parking lot on the north side of 33rd and Jackson. Often volunteers park there and walk across 33rd to the Village. Members are also welcome to park along Jackson Street and Jackson Ct. as they wish.
Please help SWE in this worthwhile cause to give a family the realized dream of a home of their own.
The Wichita Section has partnered with the Girl Scouts of the Kansas Heartland this year in several ways. Some of the members, like Allison Wright, have worked as troop leaders. We have also been involved with two middle school Engineering in Action programs. The first program, at Horace Mann Language Magnet in Wichita, involves 24 girls. The girls meet after school every 4-6 weeks to investigate the chemical properties of slime, silver polish, and a variety of disposable diapers. A trip to Sedgwick County Park’s Boundless Playground gave them an opportunity to think about how to design an accessible facility. Later they had the chance to put their designs to the test with play dough models. Several of our members have facilitated with these meetings. The girls also assisted SWE at the Engineering Expo in February and attended the WSU College of Engineering Open House on April 30.
The second program is held at the Derby Sixth Grade Center. The girls met every other week for four meetings. At each meeting they learned about a different type of engineering. Angela Schroeder attended the meeting about structural engineering. The girls had to build a tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows that would support a given weight. They also had a budget for materials. They planned out their designs first and then bought their materials.
At our March meeting, we met with the director of Habitat for Humanity and the construction manager at a prepped home site that will be built in April. We learned about the national and local donation contracts that Wichita Habitat has that reduce the cost of each house. All paint, heating and air conditioning systems, lights, and flooring are all or partially donated, and some trades people donate their time. We met on the site of a 4 bedroom house. All of the houses have vaulted ceilings, a storage shed, and a handcrafted pantry. The owners get to choose their paint colors, flooring, and lights from a Habitat collection. Owners are required to put in time on other houses before they are given their own house, and they have to work on their own house. At the end, they are given the mortgage, and become home owners and tax payers. We also met a homeowner and toured a house, and discussed what it was like for the owner before and after attaining the home.
We learned a lot about the homes, the application process, and about what will happen with the Women Build house in September. This house is partially funded and because of that our section is helping to raise money to sponsor one day of the build. We are selling shares for $30. Please consider buying a share or two. Checks can be made out to Habitat for Humanity. If interested, contact Vickie Glancy-Cannon at Vickie.GlancyCannon@swe.org. Also, shares will be on sale at the May banquet. The Women Build will be this fall. We have slots reserved for Saturday September 9 and Saturday October 2. Please consider setting aside one of these days to help SWE build.
The Kansas Junior Academy is looking for judges for their science competition. The Kansas Junior Academy is a great opportunity for Middle and High School students to get involved in scientific research. As adult scientists and researchers we have the opportunity to support these students and give them guidance to become the future researchers.
http://webs.wichita.edu/kjas/
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Last year at the State Meeting of the Kansas Junior Academy of Science (KJAS) over 100 student presentations were made. This year’s KJAS State Meeting will again be held on the WSU campus. Its success depends largely on the efforts of our professional judges.
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Your responsibility as a judge requires you to read and critique written scientific papers and then travel to WSU for the state KJAS meeting on May 6, 2010 and critique oral presentations of the research. The papers you critique will be mailed or delivered to you approximately one week prior to the state competition. Â
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Morning sessions will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Afternoon sessions will be from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. As a small token of appreciation our judges are invited to be our guest for dinner at the KJAS awards banquet which begins at 5:00 p.m.
Please contact Amy Strong for a volunteer form if you are interested in judging.
Have you heard about National Lab Day? More than 700 NSTA members have already signed up for it.
It’s a nationwide movement to bring together stakeholders in communities of support where science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professionals and teachers work together to provide more science experiences to students.
President Obama announced National Lab Day in November as part of the Administration’s Educate to Innovate campaign. More than 6.5 million professionals from 200 STEM organizations are being asked to join NLD, which is tentatively set for May 2010.
Science educators will be critical to the success of National Lab Day. NLD projects are teacher-driven. At the NLD website, teachers will be partnered with outside experts to assess current labs, update or refurbish lab equipment, conduct equipment and materials inventory, or clean and repair equipment. Or teachers can elect to have STEM professionals work with them to:
Implement hands-on projects,
Start a fund-raising effort to buy needed supplies,
We need SWE professional members as judges of the SWE course at the annual Shocker Mindstorms event. This challenge is for middle school students and is sponsored by the WSU College of Engineering and the College of Education, WSU Mindstorms
The dates are:
Trial Day: February 20, 2010, 10am to 2pm, Heskett Center (Judges need stay only 1-2 hours)
MINDSTORMS Challenge: March 6, 2010, 9am to 4pm, Heskett Center (Judges needed for all day)
This is a fun event that gives you an opportunity for seeing these young minds at work. We need at least 2 judges who can commit to both days. Judges attend a general briefing on trial day and then become familiar with their course. On challenge day, we keep order when runs are made and judge the actual attempts. The WSU SWE students will be there to oversee the course, we just have to judge.
Please contact Barbara Davis at barbara.davis@swe.org, if you are interested, or if you have any questions.
We need several people to assist with the workshops at Expanding Your Horizons. Wichita SWE has been involved with EYH for a number of years and we have enjoyed working with these middle school girls.
We are signed up to present:
20 minute Career Discussion – PowerPoint
1 hour Workshop – Steady Hand Electrical Game
1 hour Workshop – Thumb Piano
The PowerPoint presentation is being created for Wichita SWE, you would need only to make personal comments.
The workshops will use Agilent Kits. Those are available for review at any time from Barbara.
This is really a fun trip. We carpool up, have a great spaghetti lunch and then stop at the chocolate store on our way home.
Please contact Barbara Davis at barbara.davis@swe.org, if you are interested, or if you have any questions.
