Another Eggcellent Engineering Day

Stomp rockets were flying everywhere outside the Tech Lab on December 4th, during Engineering Day. The 6th through 8th graders experienced a hugely successful half-day experience thanks to the members of Nemesis 2590. The team helped kids to cultivate their passion for STEM through multiple creative challenges. 

The day started off with an interactive presentation detailing the STEM challenge that the kids would complete. Team members of Nemesis 2590 presented them with the STEM challenge that they would complete -- creating rockets out of paper which would then be launched up into the air by stomping on a bottle.  The kids asked many questions about the task and could not wait to start making their own stomp rockets.

Then, students worked in small teams of 2-3 members led by a student on the team. They then used critical thinking, creativity, and assistance from Nemesis 2590 team members to create a rocket that would launch high into the air. After stomping the rocket and being amazed by how high they went, the kids moved on to the real challenge: finding a way to launch an egg with the rocket without breaking it. 

Guided by their student mentors, the campers, the group of students, were provided with a wide selection of materials that could possibly protect the egg which they put in the bag, along with the egg. After doing this, they attached the bags to the rockets and stomped on the bottles to test run their rocket. After successful test runs, the kids and their student mentors would face the pinnacle of their Engineering Day journey: The Big Bertha cannon, a compressor-based stomp rocket launcher. Big Bertha would launch the bottles to a height of 30-40 feet, which meant that it would be difficult to prevent the egg from breaking. Some teams managed to prevent fracturing the egg, but other groups needed to improve their designs. These groups went back to the tech lab to adjust their rocket, and by the end of Engineering Day, all groups were able to prevent the egg from cracking, successfully completing the challenge.

However, this STEM challenge was not the only opportunity offered to the 6th to 8th graders that attended Engineering Day. The kids were given the special opportunity to drive Iris, the 2022 competition robot that we used in the FIRST Worlds Championship. They had lots of fun launching giant tennis ball-like game pieces 8+ feet into the air to score in giant four foot wide cones. These kids were also given the opportunity to converse with members of Nemesis 2590 in order to gather information about the team. The kids were fascinated with how smoothly Nemesis 2590 ran, and we look forward to seeing these campers at next year’s Engineering day. 

Overall, Engineering Day was an astounding success, that left kids in our community desiring to engage in more STEM related activities. We thank all the campers who showed up to Engineering Day as we had a wonderful experience spreading knowledge of STEM to the community. It was a win-win for everyone involved, and we can't wait to see what next year's Engineering Day has in store!