Bright ideas for engineering competition
Thirteen teams of Grade 11 and 12 students were building an LED light bank and also the batteries to power it from scratch at Niagara College on Saturday.
The build was part of the third annual engineering design and build competition hosted by the Professional Engineers Ontario Niagara chapter, partnered with Niagara College and the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists.
Teams of four from seven schools across the region competed.
Lindsay Mooradian, a professional engineer involved with PEO, said students are sent a package with the information they need two weeks before the competition, which gives them time to design and even do some prototypes beforehand. On competition day, each team has a kit and they must work with the materials in it to complete their designs in a four-hour time limit.
“The main goal was to bring interest to children for engineering,” she said.
One of the teams made up of Grade 12 Notre Dame College School students Adam Maunsell, Seth Murray, Ben Otto and Ana Groch was competing for the second year in a row.
Maunsell called the competition a “really cool experience” and a challenge. As a group, he said they had come up with a design and were working on a prototype before the competition, but came on competition day and realized some of the parts they were working with were much smaller than they had been working with for their early model.
Otto said it’s about learning to adapt with what you’re given.
Notre Dame math teacher Micki Staples said she helped the students register for the competition and made sure they got to the college when they needed to be there, but was otherwise hands off.
She said for her it’s great to see them take the initiative to design something functional and to be totally independent about it. She said the competition is good preparation for engineering courses at a post-secondary level.
Said Mooradian, “Sometimes schools don’t offer these kinds of opportunities explicitly.”
Stan Mathew, chair for the PEO Niagara chapter, said the competition is growing every year and as it does it is hoped to include Grade 9 and 10 students as well.
Students from Notre Dame College School, Laura Secord Secondary School, Stamford Collegiate, South Lincoln High School, Saint Michael Catholic School, Denis Morris Catholic High School and St. Paul Catholic High School made up the competition teams.
More information about the competition is available at niagara.peo.on.ca. The winners will be posted on the site later in the week.