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Building fun for future engineers Sixth Graders at Montana State University
Ladies and gentlemen, please put on your safety goggles. There’s some engineering about to happen.
Chief Joseph Middle School sixth graders Christine Olivo, Ryan Downey and Ryder Kulbeck picked up the clunky, plastic safety glasses, put them on and watched as four students from Montana State University’s College of Engineering made ice cream with liquid nitrogen.
By Tracy Ellig, MSU News Service
The demonstration – which looked more like a steaming witch’s brew than chemical engineering – was part of MSU’s Engineerathon. The Thursday event gave roughly 200 sixth graders from Chief Joseph an up-close look at the cool things you can do with math and science.
Such as freezing a balloon with liquid nitrogen until it crumples nearly flat like a paper bag, or making a light glow from electricity generated by a lemon, or building a seat-belt for an egg that’s about to have a head-on collision.
"I didn’t think it would be possible," Kulbeck said of the lemon light. "That’s pretty interesting."
Kulbeck said he’d like to work with robots when he gets older. Downey, who was quite taken with the liquid nitrogen, said he wanted to be a NASA engineer. Olivo, more interested in the physical sciences, said she’d like to be a gemologist.
The Engineerathon is part of National Engineers Week, Feb. 18-24, which seeks to raise awareness about engineers’ contributions to society and inspire interest in engineering fields among middle and high school students. The 10 demonstration booths were all hosted by MSU student volunteers, many of whom were juggling their volunteer duties with attending a career fair that took place at MSU Thursday.
"When I was 12 years old I had no idea what engineers did. That’s why I think events like this are so important," said Amber Broadbent, a doctoral candidate in chemical engineering who was volunteering her time as Engineerathon coordinator.
From Great Falls, Broadbent earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from MSU in 2004. She worked for a pharmaceutical company in Bend, Ore., for two years before returning for an advanced degree.
"I really did have all the stereotypes about engineers," she said. "I thought they worked alone, in cubicles, in drab little factories."
When she entered college she had planned on a career in medicine, but her parents encouraged her to take something other than pre-med.
"I thought chemical engineering looked interesting, even though I didn’t know what it was. I ended up really liking it," she said. "What I’ve found is that it is more exciting, challenging and glamorous than I ever realized."
Her pharmaceutical company sent her to Ireland for work and is now paying for her doctoral studies.
In addition to the Engineerathon, other Engineering Week activities include high school juniors and seniors shadowing student volunteers from the College of Engineering on Friday. The high school students will learn what a typical day is like for an MSU student.
On Saturday, more than 100 Girl Scouts will earn engineering badges at Badge Day. The scouts learn the principles of engineering by working hands-on with MSU engineering students on projects that involve things such as electricity and circuits, computers and programming and making compounds.
The student Women in Engineering Advisory Council is collaborating with the Engineering Ambassadors and the Society of Women Engineers to organize these MSU outreach events.
Contact: College of Engineering, (406) 994-2272 or Heidi Sherick, COE’s assistant dean for undergraduate programs and diversity at [email protected] or (406) 994-2272.
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