High school students visited leading-edge research labs, including the Canadian Centre for Welding and Joining, as part of a program designed to allow them to explore engineering.
(Edmonton) About 120 high school students got a back-stage pass to leading University of Alberta research labs, learned about robotic mining on land, sea, and in space-and tested their own engineering skills in a high-stakes design competition Nov. 8.
The high school students started their day off by visiting some state-of-the-art engineering facilities such as the Canadian Centre for Welding and Joining, a wind tunnel, robotics lab, and the U of A Nanofab Lab where they got to touch, smell, and see some examples of cool research engineers are involved in.
"Engineering's probably where I want to go. It'll provide me with a specific career," said one of the students who envisions himself taking computer engineering and programming.
For most of the students on the tour, engineering's on top of the possible careers list.
"Engineering's extremely popular in our high school, it's one of top two choices. Students choose it for the quality of life and a possibility to make a real difference in the world," said Scott Bezubiak, career pathway co-ordinator at Harry Ainlay High School.
"In this group, every single one of the 13 students might pursue engineering. In grade 12, they would certainly see it as a career option," adds Dave Regimbald, physics teacher from Paul Kane High School, in St. Albert.
Since engineering might be where the majority of these kids will end up going, they had a dozen of questions they wanted to address with the engineering student panel made up of current Faculty of Engineering students from various disciplines. Some of the things they wanted to know is what jobs are available with a degree, some extracurricular activities engineers can get involved in, professional dreams and aspirations the students have, and the most ambitions engineering projects they built.
"Engineering opens up so many doors," said Jason Wang, third-year mechanical engineering student and project manager with the University of Alberta EcoCar team.
He encouraged high school students to explore everything engineering has to offer and get involved in student-led initiatives.
"We have a very strong unity in our engineering community, which you don't get in other faculties," he added.
The students also took part in an egg-drop competition in which they were required to design and build a device that would protect an egg from the shock of a two-storey fall.
"The most challenging part of it was the time constraint," said one of the students, whose team glued the last piece on just as the time ran out. Teams had 45 minutes to reverse-engineer an egg drop and build a protective device from scratch using paper towels, Popsicle sticks, rubber bands, threads, and a zip lock.
"We used two different dimensions to divert the energy somewhere else," said another student, as he was piecing together an inside container for the egg.
The egg-drop structures were tested against the forces of nature as students and instructors were having lunch. Two teams with the most intricate designs - and solid eggs - won the challenge and brought home a bag full of prizes.
The experiment was a hands-on part of a half-a-day tour to immerse high school students in engineering, discovering what the profession has to offer, and speculate on future problems engineers will have to solve.Sponsored by Shell, it's the first high school students' visit of many the Faculty of Engineering will be running in the next three years, as the recipient of a $75,000 Shell award to introduce Grade 11 and 12 students to the excitement and energy of engineering and applied science.
The day wrapped with a fascinating talk about ground, deep sea, and planet mining by Greg Baiden, Chairman and CTO at Penguin Automated Systems, one of the visionaries in the field of mining robotics and automation.
"We hope to show that engineering is for everyone," said Tim Joseph, an associate dean of engineering and a professor with the School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, and one of the event organizers.