UK – Page 3 – Margaret Mohr-Schroeder

June 26, 2014June 26, 2014

The Wonderful World of Engineering!

With all 143 students back on campus today we were all pretty busy…having lots of fun! Today was full of engineering fun for both groups. Red and blue groups had a blast with the Dr. Walcott and other College of Engineering staff. They got to tour the different facilities and laboraties the College of Engineering has. One of their favorites was going into the sound proof room…now if only we could get them to stay quiet for 30 seconds to really experience it 🙂 They also got to design an aluminum boat and test it’s floating capacity. In robotics, they got started on the Green City Challenge today and had a lot of great successes. There were lots of smiles and high-fives as the students completed the various tasks associated with the challenges. Tomorrow they are in for another treat with Dr. Brett Criswell and some nanotechnology action! Since the astronomy viewing was not available all week because of night time cloud cover, Dr. Tim Knauer – Director of the MacAdams Observatory – came over after his class today and set up his special telescope that allowed the students to view the sun directly. They were very excited to see the fiery ball and even a ring was visible! We only wish the other two groups could’ve seen it too, but he is teaching a class until 12:30 each day.

The yellow and green groups took to some design engineering activities with Mr. Doug Klein from Project Lead the Way. Mr. Klein had them building away during their session. The students were very excited to be “real engineers” for the day and got to design and build dams and levees. In robotics they started the newly-released Space Challenge. Since this is a new, it brought about it’s own set of challenges, but the kids did a great job of working through it all together, being patient, and working on programming. One group got up to 53 blocks for one program! Wow! Tomorrow they will get to end with a STEM Camp favorite – Dr. Bruce Walcott.

In their words…

The wonderful world of engineering! (Dr. Bruce Walcott) – red and blue Groups

I learned that when being an engineer you have to consider the volume of what your creating like what we did with the pennies.
That concrete boats float
Yes because I enjoy both math and science which are what you use in engineering.
The more the volume of a boat, the better it can float with weight.
I thought the activities made it fun.

Design Engineering – Mr. Doug Klein – yellow and green groups

Building the egg mobile
That we got to actually enginer stuff.
I learned how to build a dam.
I am interested in a career in engineering because I like to create things and solve problems.
Yes; engineering is all around us and is a big part in life.
Levees (effective ones, at least) can be made with tape, cardboard, dirt, and popsicle sticks.
It was interactive, fun, and included one of my possible careers.
Yes because I love Stem and it is my passion.

Conversation Starters…

Blue and Red Groups

What is a sound proof room? What makes it sound proof?
How many pennies were you able to put into your boat? What makes your boat float?
How did you find the area or dimensions of what your boat needed to be?
What was your favorite part of engineering today?
What challenge did you complete in the Green City Challenge?
How do you and your partner(s) work together to program and complete the challenges?

Yellow and Green Groups

What does it mean to be an engineer?
What do you need to build a successful levee or dam?
Talk to me about how you created your levee or dam today. What did you take into consideration as you built it?
What is an egg mobile?

Picture of the Day… Be sure to scroll through the pictures as I noticed that I didn’t hit accept to publish the pictures from yesterday. I’m missing half of the pictures from today so I will get them uploaded in the morning…my apologies…we’re trying hard to keep up with these great kids!

June 25, 2014

We made it through Hump Day!

It was yet another busy, fun-filled, informative day at the See Blue STEM Camp! The Yellow and Green Groups loaded up the buses and headed out to the Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER) today while the red and blue groups remained on campus for a day of robotics and mathematical modeling with Dr. Cindy Jong. The yellow and green groups really enjoyed their time at CAER and learned A LOT. They came home with some paving stones that they made themselves and learned about the chemical reactions between concrete and cement…be sure to ask them about it! If the stones start to crack put a little water on them as that should help it as it cures. Since they were out at CAER today there was no robotics for them.

The red and blue groups had a great time doing some mathematical modeling with Dr. Cindy Jong. I always love having the students experience “pure mathematics” because most come in sullen that they “have to do” mathematics and then they realize that math can be engaging and fun! They first talked about 3D structures and had the opportunity to build with some sticks and balls manipulatives trying to figure out the varying strengths of different configurations. Then they learned what origami had to do with math. They made origami cubes and some even got to the crane today. They were all very excited by the end!

In robotics they worked on programming. They learned how to do a 180 degree turn, complete the parking lot challenge and the square challenge. They learned that not all robots are created equal and had fun figuring out which variables (math!) had to be changed in order to get their robot to do what they wanted it to do. That completes the basics for them so tomorrow they will start on the Green City Challenge.

Tomorrow we’ll all be back together on campus…we have deemed tomorrow Engineering Day! The students will spend most of their time in the engineering complex tomorrow…it’s usually one of the favorites!

In their words…

Mathematical Modeling (red and blue groups):

I learned about polyhedrons.
I liked doing the origami crane.
I really liked that my bridge didn’t break.
I liked how we got to build 3D shapes.
Yes, because I would like to build bridges when I grow up.

CAER (yellow and green groups):

Seaweed can be made into fuel and is edible.
A lot of the information we learned today could benefit us in the real world. Some of the information we learned could inspire us to be scientist
I find this very applicable to real life situations.
Yes, because I like science and I wish to work here one day.
About how many biofuels like algae can consume carbon-dioxide and create any fuel.
I liked learning these things today because It will help my future.

Conversation Starters…

Yellow and Green Groups:

What did you learn on your energy walk today?
Where does Kentucky rank in comparison to the other states in energy usage? Why is our ranking so high when we have such a low population?
What in the world is Flocculation?
I always thought that cement dried…what happens to it if it doesn’t dry? What is it actually doing?
What was your favorite part of going to the Center for Applied Energy Research?

Red and Blue Groups:

What does origami have to do with math?
What kind of shapes did you use in building your bridge?
How did you get your cube together without using tape or glue?
Why is mathematical modeling important?

Picture of the Day… Don’t forget that clicking the picture will take you to all the pictures we took today!

June 12, 2013June 12, 2013

Brainiac Tuesday at STEM Camp

Have you ever held a brain in your hands? Have you ever thought about what it would feel like? Our bodies are amazing functioning machines, with the brain and spinal cord at the core of that functioning. The students got to learn all about that today at STEM Camp and even got to hold a brain and a spinal cord. There was even a brain cut in half so you could actually get a glimpse of what the inside looked like! The students were really surprised at really how “squishy” the brain is. They learned about the importance of the dura covering the brain in addition to the skull itself. The students were also amazed at how narrow and flimsy the spinal cord was. They really enjoyed today…even the students who weren’t too sure about having a real brain in the room at first. In addition to the exciting hands-on features of today’s events, the students conducted nerve experiments on each other.

In robotics today, they finished building their robots if they needed to and then started on their first challenges. The students had a lot of fun trying to figure out the initial challenges and changing up the program code on their robots. It’s always great to see the students working together to problem solve and test their new solutions!

In their words…

When you are right handed you use the left half of the brain
The brain has a protective cover called the Dura mater
You have the same number of brain cells when you are a baby as when you are grown up
The frontal cortex is not essential to living
There was a man who had a train spike impaled through his head and lived

Conversation Starters…

So what was it like to hold a brain today? Was it what you thought it would be?
Why is the frontal cortex not essential to living?
What is important about the dura matter?
What challenges did you work on today at Robotics?
How do you like programming the robot?

Photo of the day…

Aren’t they a great looking group!!??

Click here to check out all the pictures we took today. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @seebluestemcamp for real-time updates about what your kids are experiencing throughout the day!

June 10, 2013June 10, 2013

Week 2 Begins!

stem camp 2013 Welcome to the UK See Blue STEM Camp week 2…for the 7th and 8th graders! We have a great group of 72 students this year who were very eager to start up this morning even though we had dreary weather for a Monday!

Today was “Engineering Day” with Dr. Bruce Walcott in the College of Engineering. Dr. Walcott has helped out with numerous outreach and education activities for the past several years; he is always a very big hit with the kids as he plans for exciting things! The kids got to tour various parts of the engineering complex and talk to a variety of different engineers. Many of the kids did not know what an engineer did nor did they know there were some many different types of engineers! They conducted a few small experiments (including the one below!) and got to explore different pieces of equipment. They also explored a few engineering principles (really mathematics principles!!) such as building a boat out of aluminum foil and seeing how many pennies it could hold, and building a special motor.

In robotics today, the students began by building their robots…this week the robots they are building and doing challenges with are the sumorobots. Almost all of the groups finished up building today and will begin their challenges tomorrow. We got so excited about watching the kids robots take shape that we forgot to snap some robotics pictures! We promise to do better tomorrow.

Your kids will be working in groups all week long. The robotics groups are teams of 2 and will stay the same all week long, while the other groups formed will vary throughout the week. As the “real world” continues to become more team-work oriented, we want to help our students grow in that direction as well. We hope your child gets to work with a variety of students this week and in turn meets some great new friends!

In their words… – Each day we’ll post some excerpts from the students’ evaluations of what they learned each day at the content session.

There are many types of ways that engineers help build everyday objects.
I learned that planning is very important in building.
Wing warping is a technique of controlling airplanes.
Nano boxes are used to send data to and from space.
How surface area affects sound.
The different fields and careers available in engineering.

Conversation Starters… – We know that your child is getting to the age where it might be like pulling teeth to get them to talk about their day beyond “It was fine.” “It was fun.” Each day we’ll post some suggested conversation starters centered on camp activities or STEM-related themes.

What was interesting about Archimedes Principle?
I didn’t realize UK had a space program…could you tell me more about it?
What are these Aerokats I keep hearing about?
I wonder if regular airplane wings can go into outerspace. Hmmm. Or do they need special ones?
How do they do experiments on the International Space Station?
What in the world is happening in the following pictures!?

Photo of the Day… – Each day we’ll post a photo collage highlight. Clicking on the picture will also link to all of the pictures taken at camp. Please note that we try to capture pictures of all of the campers, but we cannot guarantee that we will get every single one. We try our very best too! Also, we are STEM teachers and not full time photographers, so our pictures are not perfect and we leave them unedited, so if you love to edit photos…feel free!

June 3, 2013June 7, 2013

Day 1 of See Blue STEM Camp

Today we welcomed seventy 5th and 6th from across the state of Kentucky to the 4th annual See Blue STEM Camp! We had a great first day of camp today! All of the kids enjoyed the activities. They were able to tour of the Vis Center as well as the Engineering Buildings. Dr. Bruce Walcott, Professor of Electrical Engineering, also had them build towers out of some rogue Lego parts.

On the robotics side the students got busy building their robots and then participated in the distance challenge. They had to program their robots to drive up to a figure but not knock it over. Tomorrow they will move into more difficult programming challenges.

Up tomorrow is Ms. Carolyn Crowdus, from the College of Medicine, who will guide the campers through the neuroscience of the human brain. Her presentation, “Got brains? A journey through the human mind” will help campers explore and learn about the vast intricacies of the human mind. Students will have the opportunity to explore actual brains and stem cords. If you prefer your student not to participate in this activity or if you think the activity will cause a reaction please let us know.

Tomorrow night we are planning on the observatory visit – watch your email for more information!

Check out the following link for pictures: