Annual tech showcase attracts future engineers

Balsa bridges, wind turbines, catapults and robots zipping around the floor of the Wildcat Field House:  it was science come to life at the 14th Annual Mohawk Valley Technology Education & Pre-Engineering Showcase last month.

“We hosted more than 300 students from 29 schools,” said Elizabeth Rossi, K-12 Outreach Coordinator for SUNY Poly. “Both middle school and high school students brought projects that they have already been working on in school. They bring them here to display and to compete in a variety of solo and team events.”

Events at the March 12 showcase included everything from sumo robots trying to push each other around, and out of, the ring, to live CO² cars racing around a raised track, to teams competing to use random ‘junk’ to solve a designated problem. Some competitions involved students building wind turbines to solve energy problems, designing a STEM Education logo, and even trying to hit specific targets with ping pong balls shot from catapults the students designed and built. The public, professionals, and engineering students at SUNY Poly were given the opportunity to see these types of creations and more as they caught a glimpse of the ideas awaiting us in the future and the young, innovating minds behind them.

“STEM encompasses computers, balsa bridges, robots, and many other things,” Rossi said. “It’s a broad category that allows students to express themselves with applied science and math in both their competitions and their displays.”

Rossi was assisted the day of the showcase by faculty and staff volunteers as well as several students from Instructor Bob Payne’s C/MTC 301 “Professionalism in the Workplace” class. Student volunteer Michael Lucy, a senior Mechanical Engineering Technology major from Bennington, Vermont, said he was impressed with the participants’ projects. He said that one of the key things that students gain from tackling STEM subjects in such an experiential way is the real-life ability to solve problems.

“You have a problem and you’re solving it. That’s huge in mechanical engineering,” Lucy said. “I just had my first internship this summer and while I learned a lot in the classroom, I learned so much more on the job. The same applies to these kids. They’re building upon what they get in the classroom through hands-on experiences.”

Going hand-in-hand with solving problems at the showcase was having fun, something Kayleigh East, a Rome Free Academy freshman, enjoys.

“I’ve always been interested in engineering, ever since I was little. And naturally, the FIRST Lego League caught my interest,” East said. “I just love everything about this: the coding, the building, the designing; it all interests me. There’s no con to this at all. I have two career paths, to become a robotics engineer and to make video games.”

Despite many years of involvement in this and similar events with K-12 students, Rossi was in awe of all the creativity and innovation at the showcase, bringing with it not only a tremendous sense of pride in the future for these students and the world they will create, but the contributions events like this, and hands-on learning will bring them as they get there.

“Being able to think on your feet is a critical skill,” Rossi said. “Being able to work in a team under a certain timeframe is important in engineering, and to be able to collaborate with your peers on a difficult challenge is also important for anyone who is going to be successful in the 21st Century, especially someone going into a STEM field.”