Tag Archives: engineering

STEAM Stations: Engineering Day

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At the beginning of February, the youth team of the library hosted our 2nd STEAM Stations event! What are STEAM Stations? For those who don’t know, STEAM Stations is the monthly library youth event that the Teen Advisory Board organizes that focuses on various aspects of STEAM (Science, Technology, Art, Mathematics). Last month, we focused on binary coding which was a super fun experience. This month, we focused on engineering which was very exciting!

For those who missed it, we had three different stations that focused on simple aspects of engineering:

Our first station was our spaghetti and marshmallow towers. Participants would use their spaghetti sticks and mini marshmallows in order to build a tower as tall as they can. Once they had their tower built, their challenge was to balance one large marshmallow on top. They were all able to test their structures and building skills with a super fun activity.

The second station was our pom-pom catapults. Another activity focused on building but also trajectory! Participants would follow the directions using popsicle sticks, rubber bands, and a plastic spoon in order to create their own catapult that they could test out with fun, colorful pom-poms. It was an entertaining activity that tested more of their building skills and challenged them to launch their pom-poms the farthest they could with their craft. 

Finally, we had our paper-airplane station. A nice, simple station that allowed participants to test what kind of design created the best working paper airplane. Participants could create their own design or follow given directions to try and create the best paper airplane that would be able to soar as far as possible. 

Our February STEAM Stations was another success! It was super popular with people of all ages coming around combined with a mix of returners and newcomers. We had people who knew the event was happening and people who had no idea what STEAM Stations were come to participate. Our participants had a lot of fun experimenting the best ways to build their spaghetti towers, some even working together to build one giant one. They also had a great time launching pom-poms into the air and throwing paper airplanes around the Children’s Center. All of our stations focused on an aspect of building and required everyone to really think about how to create the most efficient design and model while also having fun.

Our third and final STEAM Stations event will be held on March 8 at the Potocki Center for the Arts and will be centered around Biology! We will have even more fun and creative activities ready for everyone who wants to attend. We hope to see you all there!

-Nicole R.

Kansas School of Engineering Camp Review

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Student Involvement | School of Engineering

Hey Everyone!

One of the amazing opportunities I had this summer was going to an amazing camp at the University of Kansas for Engineering! This week long sleep-away camp was such an amazing experience since I am currently looking at careers in engineering.

Through the week I went to different classes where I learned more about the field of civil engineering and got to meet many different personals from the campus as well as see some guest speakers, like Phd students and professors.

Overall I would say this was a super fun camp and I would recommend it not only for people who are interested in engineering but also because of all the different people you get to meet from many different places.

Some of the cons of this camp were that it was in a different state, so it was definitely less of an environment that I was used to and in addition to planning for the camp you must also figure out the transportation. However, this camp was much more reasonably priced compared to many camps in California. Even including my flights, round trip it costed around one third of some of the other camps I was looking at located at some UC’s.

I would definitely recommend this camp for everyone because I think it’s such a fun experience, even if you aren’t too interested in engineering since it provides great insight into career options outside of engineering too, along with college guidance.

Book Review: The 99% Invisible City by Kurt Kohlstedt and Roman Mars

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Recently, I was looking for a new book to read and I found The 99% Invisible City by Kurt Kohlstedt and Roman Mars. I found this book about engineering in a city very interesting, as it specifically talks about how many elements of a city go unnoticed but help to lead our everyday lives in the background. I enjoyed how it expressed the complex concept of civil engineering in a more readable way, and I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in engineering.

One thing that is remarkable about this book is how well-researched that the entries in the book are, providing a detailed history of many different aspects in separate cities and how they have changed over time. The book also taught me a lot about design in cities that I thought was very interesting. I was also intrigued how the book showed how much design and effort has gone into designing the modern world.

One of my favorite sections from the book is about how the national highway system was built. I thought it was interesting how much we use this piece of infrastructure without noticing it much. I also enjoyed the detailed history and backstory of these highways. I also enjoyed how it talked about how different famous landmarks around the world were constructed, and how many of them have secondary purposes, as well as how many important functional pieces of the city are hidden away.

This book is also great to read if you are interested in engineering or design because it also elaborates on its detailed descriptions with many colorful drawings and schematics, helping break down the book into readable sections. It uses both technical and understandable language to describe different ideas, and not only is it an entertaining read, but in the end I actually learned many new things from this book as well, so I would say that overall this was an extremely good read.

In the end, The 99% Invisible City was one of the best reads that I’ve ever read so far, and it’s sure to be entertaining and interesting for you as well. I would especially recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about engineering, or is interested in civil or mechanical engineering. I would also recommend the 99% Invisible podcast if you enjoy this book. It is by the same authors of the book and is very interesting as well. And don’t forget to check out this book for yourself sometime!

The 99% Invisible City by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt is available to check out from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download for free from Libby.

October Sky

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This movie follows Homer Hickam and friends in the town of Coalwood, West Virginia around 1957. His father, John Hickam, wants Homer to join him in the mines. However, after seeing Sputnik 1 shoot across the sky, Homer becomes determined to build a rocket of his own. Homer and his friends Quentin, Roy, and O’Dell set off on building this rocket. Though their first couple of rockets are utter failures, they continue trying to build and test out these rockets with the support of their teacher Miss Riley. However, their rocket building endeavors hit a snag when local authorities blame them for causing a forest fire, leading to the group of boys tearing down their launch site and ending further rocket testing. Undeterred, Homer is able to prove through calculations that he and his friends were not the cause of the forest fire and resume building rockets, eventually getting to the state science fair.

This movie was amazing in that it shows the power of passion for whatever may interest you. By putting in their all and never giving up in the face of failure, Homer and his friends were able to completely change the path of their future that washeld for them. The audience may ask themselves, “How is this even reasonable? There’s no way simple interest in rockets and entering a science fair can alter someone’s future this greatly!” However, this was in fact based off of a real story! This movie teaches a great story of following one’s dreams and the importance of family in one’s success. It is a great movie to watch, with an even greater lesson behind it.

-Kobe L.

Apparently, I Can’t Ride a Boat

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On Saturday, August 12, from 3:30-6pm, my friends and I built a cardboard boat, and attempted to race it across the Sierra Recreation and Fitness Center Pool.

We were given two large, cardboard boxes, a roll of silver duct tape, and a new X-acto knife (in the package!). We had 60 minutes to mess around and figure out how on earth to get 16-year-old-me across a lap pool against kids a third of my size.

We decided a canoe shape would stand out aerodynamically and also look cool. We used a red pen to trace the outline of one cardboard box and had great ideas while listening to Hamilton. We made flaps to keep the edges together and coated it in duct tape.

Soon families began to cart their boats to the pool. Their boats looked very different from ours! We wondered if this was a good or bad thing. We looked back on our hard work and realized in our strategic placing of cardboard and duct tape, we had forgotten to include the other cardboard box! We hastily taped together supporting poles from the other box and hobbled the odd raft to the pool as an employee insisted we’d be disqualified in seconds.

We waited for our team name, Wrong Direction, to be called, and lined up on the bright poolside. I was the smallest, so I had been nominated to maneuver the raft. I was given a plastic, green shovel to navigate the treacherous water. How I was going to get in, I did not know. My friend etched the boat over the pool’s peak, and when he megaphone blared “GO!” I nervously put one foot in the boat and it instantly collapsed under my weight.

Laughing, I sunk into the chlorinated water and held onto the soggy, floating cardboard to try and recompose myself. The failure of our creation was magical and hilarious. It took me a while to stop giggling and not-so-gracefully heave myself out of the water. Wrong Direction did not care at all that our hard work and been reduced to mush because creating it and watching me sink (mainly watching me sink) was an as good as a reward as any.

We had so much fun, and will definitely be staying updated with the Sierra Recreation and Fitness Center’s activities, as I recommend you do as well.

-Jessica F.