Students have a blast at OC academy
Oklahoma Christian University invited to campus nearly 100 high school students from 17 states to give them a taste of the college experience.
The Summer Honors Academy, held last week, is designed for high-achieving students who have completed their freshman through junior years. Students can enroll in two courses and earn up to two college credit hours.
Kevin Plumlee, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, taught an engineering course. On Thursday, about 15 students worked on one of the main projects, designing and testing water-powered rockets.
“We fill up a 2-liter bottle with a little bit of water and a bicycle pump and pump it full of air, pressurize it and then release it and then shoot it way up in the air,” Plumlee said.
“And that’s fun, but the engineering part comes in the design of the shape and the stability and then also experimentation like how much water and how much pressure to add,” he said.
The students worked in teams and tested how to make the rockets go as high as possible until their final launch, which is measured against the other teams.
“To measure the height, rather than using fancy electronics, we’re using some very rudimentary tools, but really, we’re just using math,” Plumlee said.
The students use trigonometry to calculate how high the rockets go, Plumlee said. “It’s a good way to practically use high school level math.”
Hayden Langdon, 15, who attends Norman North High School, said, “Both my brothers went to this academy, so I decided to.
“I’m just taking the classes and going to the chapel. They’re cool classes. I really like the engineering class, building the rockets and stuff.”
Austin Hagood was Langdon’s partner for the rocket project. He heard about the academy from his sister, who attends OC.
Hagood, 16, of Coman- che, Texas, said he was having a great time in the engineering class and his other course.
“I was also in a game design class, which is also really interesting. Today, we learned how to use Maya, which is like a big professional program that they use for movies, so that was pretty interesting. It’s been a lot like what college is actually going to be like.”