Through making homemade crazy putty or creating mini-catapults, close to 200 students got together to share the importance of engineering with friends and families in the Binghamton community.
This past Saturday, the Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science hosted its annual Community Day. Held in Binghamton University’s Innovative Technologies Complex (ITC), the event was free and open to the public. Engineering-based student organizations taught scientific concepts to attendees through presentations, tours and interactive activity stations.
Community Day has been held at BU for approximately 20 years and is a part of Engineer’s Week, a national week-long celebration that promotes the study of engineering. It is spearheaded by the non-profit organization DiscoverE. This year’s national theme was “engineers make a world of difference.”
The event ran from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., and was sponsored by IBM, Raymond, Lockheed Martin, Rockwell Collins, BAE Systems, Binghamton University Dining Services, Universal Instruments, Mirabito and Shumaker.
Local children were able to participate in various activities, including the egg drop challenge. The station was sponsored by Pi Tau Sigma, the National Mechanical Engineering Honor Society. Kids were challenged to build a protective case for an egg so that it could be dropped 15 feet without breaking, using materials like bubble wrap, plastic foam and rubber bands. Other events included circuit building, a demonstration on using lemons as batteries and a tour of the 3D printing lab.
Students from Engineering World Health (EWH), a student organization that works to improve healthcare in poor countries through biomedical engineering, ran a station where attendees built DNA models from marshmallows and Twizzlers. EWH president Leigha Jarett, a senior majoring in biomedical engineering, said that for the student volunteers, it’s rewarding to teach others about the scientific disciplines.
“It’s really nice to get involved in the community,” Jarett said. “It’s nice to work with kids since you don’t really get to work with kids that much as a college student, and also encouraging students to pursue STEM careers or engineering careers is fun.”
While some events were new, such as the tour of the 3D printing lab, other organizations brought back successful activities from previous years. The National Society of Black Engineers held a zip line activity, where participants had to figure out a way to get a ping pong ball from the top to the bottom of a zip line in less than four seconds.
“It’s challenging, it’s innovative, it’s fun,” said Uthman Olowa, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering. “The kids get really excited for it. It’s competitive, so we just figured why not bring it back again this year.”
According to David Berman, assistant to the dean in the Watson School, there were approximately 350 attendees, including around 60 students from Johnson City Schools through STEP (Science and Technology Entry Program), which aims to get underrepresented students interested in the field.
“[The goal is] to share engineering with kids,” Berman said. “Engage kids and show them what engineering can do and what engineers do, and really open their minds to those possibilities.”