{"id":54477,"date":"2012-02-07T08:40:39","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T13:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=54477"},"modified":"2012-02-10T12:00:11","modified_gmt":"2012-02-10T17:00:11","slug":"engineering-ambassadors-reach-out-to-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/02\/engineering-ambassadors-reach-out-to-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineering Ambassadors Reach Out to Students"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"UConn<\/a>
UConn undergraduate engineering students took part in hands-on activities for children from the Windham School District in the Classroom Building on Feb. 4. The event was co-sponsored by UConn's Engineering Ambassadors and Big Brothers Big Sisters. (Ariel Dowski '14 (CLAS)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wearing a pink shirt adorned with butterflies and a glittery silver vest, 10-year-old Jennifer Sapio leans on a table as she carefully guides a bent paperclip loop through a twisted copper wire maze called the Electric Rollercoaster.<\/p>\n

Every time Jennifer\u2019s paperclip touches the copper wire, a tiny motor in a nearby box whirs into motion and the little girl squeals in both frustration and delight. \u201cNo! No! No! No!\u201d Jennifer says, as she hands the loop to her science partner Hermana Henry, 15, of Bloomfield. Hermana, with a much steadier hand, successfully navigates the maze, as Jennifer watches in quiet fascination.<\/p>\n

By playing this homemade version of the popular children\u2019s game \u201cOperation,\u201d the pair learn basic electrical engineering and how a completed circuit transmits electricity.<\/p>\n

Throughout the Classroom Building Saturday, Jennifer, Hermana, and about 100 other students from the Windham School District and a few scattered schools around Connecticut hustled about as part of \u201cExplore Science and Engineering Day,\u201d an event sponsored by UConn\u2019s Engineering Ambassadors program and Nutmeg Big Brothers Big Sisters.<\/p>\n

The Engineering Ambassadors program is designed to expose K-12 students to real world applications of the STEM disciplines \u2013 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math \u2013 and to foster an interest in those disciplines as a future career.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was fun, just too many loops!\u201d Jennifer says about the rollercoaster, before taking off toward a chemical engineering activity in which the students used hydrogen peroxide and dish soap to cause a bubbly chemical reaction they called Elephant\u2019s Toothpaste.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The program encouraged children to be creative and explore things. (Ariel Dowski '14 (CLAS)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hermana says she didn\u2019t mind sacrificing a sunny Saturday afternoon to learn some basic principles of science and engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to try to go into engineering,\u201d said Hermana, a student at Bloomfield High School. \u201cThis is about working hard and trying to get a jump start on your future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now in its second year, UConn\u2019s Engineering Ambassadors program reaches about 2,000 students each semester through daylong visits to up to a dozen schools, according to Sonya Renfro, program coordinator for outreach and diversity in the School of Engineering. About 120 undergraduates ranging from freshmen to seniors currently serve as ambassadors, where they have opportunities to receive advanced training as program presenters. The program has received financial support from the United Technologies Corp.<\/p>\n

Saturday was the first time the Engineering Ambassadors have teamed up with UConn\u2019s Big Brothers Big Sisters to co-sponsor an event. About 200 UConn students participate in Big Brothers Big Sisters, where they spend about one hour a week with children in the Windham School District, according to Jackie Lundie, director of programs for Nutmeg Big Brothers Big Sisters. Members of UConn Big Brothers Big Sisters participated in separate training programs during Saturday\u2019s event, and then took part in team science projects with their Windham students later in the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is so empowering,\u201d Lundie said, referring to the Windham students in her program. \u201cThis is teaching them to be creative, to explore things, and it\u2019s a great way to teach them social skills and build their self-esteem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcelle \u2018Marty\u2019 Wood, assistant dean for undergraduate education and diversity in the School of Engineering, said that getting students engaged in the STEM disciplines early is important if they are considering engineering as a future career.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the major engineering firms in Connecticut are concerned about not having enough engineers,\u201d says Wood. \u201cOne of the ways to encourage more students to become engineers is to get seventh and eighth grade students interested in engineering, so that by the ninth grade they have a path.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The students participated in various different activities, depending on their age and skill level. (Ariel Dowski '14 (CLAS)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stephany Santos, co-president of UConn\u2019s Engineering Ambassadors, said she was seven years old when she decided she wanted to go into biomedical engineering, after watching a disabled man struggling to get into his car. She realized then that she wanted to help people, and engineering was one way to do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis program is designed to inspire the next generation,\u201d says Santos, whose father is an engineer. \u201cI don\u2019t want these kids to just go out looking for a job. I want them to go out there and make a difference. As engineers, we make things that help people, and we try to change the world. In this program, we want to open their eyes to the opportunities that are out there so they can do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santos, a 21-year-old senior biomedical engineering major from Middletown, is one of the founding members of UConn\u2019s Engineering Ambassadors program. She says that making a connection with the younger students will always be a very special part of her UConn experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese kids that we go out and see, when they smile back at us, when they ask great questions, when their eyes are wide and they are looking back at us with all this enthusiasm, that\u2019s really special. That\u2019s when you can tell they really understand,\u201d Santos says.<\/p>\n

The activities the students participated in Saturday varied depending on their age and skill level. Younger students made marshmallow towers that were tested on a shake table to illustrate principles of civil engineering, while their older peers constructed elaborate bridges out of straws and paperclips before testing their resilience under different weights.<\/p>\n

The tabletops in one of the classrooms looked like a mini disaster area, as the students twisted soda cans, snapped popsicle sticks, pulled licorice pieces, and pounded pieces of Styrofoam, while learning that the word \u2018strong\u2019 in materials science and engineering can mean many things. The different activities were used to illustrate bending, tensile, torsional, and sheer strength.<\/p>\n

Some students built and raced Lego block cars to learn about gravity and velocity, while others used big purple sponges, dowel rods, PVC pipe, plungers, and duct tape to build their own prosthetic devices in a class called \u201cOh Phalanges!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty cool,\u201d said Ethan Henck, 14, of Glastonbury, whose homemade prosthetic device worked quite well and impressed the engineering students in the room. \u201cTrying to put it all together was hard, but we were the first group to get it to work.\u201d Henck says he is interested in a future career involving computer engineering and pyrotechnics, something that appeals to him after learning that most firework shows are orchestrated via computer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 100 students from the Windham School District visited UConn on Saturday to explore science and engineering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":54498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1715,69,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[44],"class_list":["post-54477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-impact","category-gallery","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-01 11:30:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54477"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54509,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54477\/revisions\/54509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/54498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54477"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=54477"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=54477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}