Racing into Engineering at St. Ambrose

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By Jody Ferres | Saturday, July 22, 2006 12:00 AM CDT | () comments

Photo by Jeff Cook/QUAD-CITY TIMES Claire Wolbers, a sixth-grader at Roosevelt Elementary School in Moline, uses a balloon to test Newton’s three laws of motion during a camp at St. Ambrose University in Davenport to study engineering and science.

What started out as a block of wood turned into a project team World Racer was taking very seriously.

Twelve-year-old Eliza Zeglin sat intensely sanding her top secret design. “You gotta make sure there aren’t any bumps on it at all,” said Jordan Catholic School student. “The air goes into the bumps, if you have any, and it doesn’t go as fast as it could.”

Zeglin’s teammate, Claire Opar, looked up from the specs of her paint design.

“You just have to know what it takes to make them fast,” said Opar, a seventh-grader at St. Paul Lutheran School.

Trajectory, aerodynamics and Newton’s laws of motion may not be words found in most middle school science curriculums, but St. Ambrose University in Davenport was helping students put those terms to good use.

Almost 40 Quad-City sixth- and seventh-graders spent a week at SAU learning physics, math and how to apply that to a race car in the second annual Racing into Engineering summer camp.

During the week-long day camp, the students spent time learning about stomp rockets and different hands-on experiments before using those principles to design, build and race their cars.

At the beginning of the week, students were placed into groups of three or four, with a team-teacher assigned to each group. Students learned what shapes were the most aero-dynamic. Using a wind-tunnel similar to what a large automotive company would use, students could see the amount of turbulence and air flow of their design.

Dr. Tom Yang, a physics professor at SAU, helped the students observe each of their cars in the tunnel and gave them advice on how to make them even better.

“The students can visually see how the wind comes off their cars and if it’s interfering with the motion,” said Yang, demonstrating how easy it is to see the air motion come across the dragsters. “We really enjoy helping the students and hope that some will be scientists and engineers someday.”

Thomas Condon, a 12-year-old seventh-grader from Smart Intermediate, really liked the fact that everyone could design their cars exactly the way they wanted to.

“It was interesting to do it. We drew a design, taped it on the wood, and the teachers helped us cut it out before we sanded it,” he said. “We had to make sure there weren’t bumps in the wind tunnel so it won’t get as much air because it slows it down.”

On Friday, the groups put their designs to the test and raced each other using a carbon dioxide powered track, using each student’s individual score to get a team average to see who designed the best cars.

Dr. Rachel Serianz, who specializes in science education, has helped team-teach the camp for the past two years. Serianz believes a camp of this caliber is a good stepping-stone for those students who want to take more science and engineering courses in high school and college.

“It really shows them a lot about the experimental method, principles of physics they don’t encounter in middle school,” said Serianz, who wrote the curriculum for the camp. “It really sets them up for the next level.”

Included in the curriculum is a way the college hopes will bring more physics and engineering into area middle school classrooms.

About 10 area middle school science teachers came a week before the campers to have a five-day course in physics and how to incorporate those principles into their classroom. Those teachers were put with the racing groups at the camp to give campers a 4-to-1 student/teacher ratio.

Keith Puebla, who teaches sixth grade science in Walcott, wanted to see how he could incorporate innovative ideas into his classroom.

“Physics is a field we don’t usually teach,” he said. “The camp is really good for kids because they’re interested in building things that go fast.”

The idea for the camp had been a brainchild of Dr. Michael Opar, assistant professor in industrial engineering. For the past seven years the professor had wanted a summer engineering camp for young students but ran into some snags with cost and interest.

But after the college wrote, and received, a Step Grant from the National Science Foundation two years ago, Racing Into Engineering got the checkered flag.

“I wanted something that was fun, because going to physics camp wasn’t going to excite the kids,” he said. “Math and science can be a lot of fun and not just sitting down and getting lectured from chalk on a board.”

Last year, with 27 campers, the camp averaged about $15,000 to operate. Because of the way the original Science Foundation Grant was worded, St. Ambrose was unable to use that money for this year’s camp. Instead, the Scott County Regional Authority helped foot the bill.

Serianz believes it is a great tool for the students.

“Kids really need this information and to be exposed before high school,” Serianz said. “If they’re interested in it, they need to be able to plan their courses accordingly.”

Opar hopes he has planted an interest in math, science and engineering for the kids.

“I hope we have 40 more scientists in the future,” he said.

The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2245 or newsroom@qctimes.com.