Seminole SECME wins silver

2nd place overall Olympiads in the district!
Seminole Ridge SECME won four trophies at the 2011 SECME regional Olympiad, including second place overall for the county! Teams from twenty high schools in Palm Beach County participated in the engineering contests at Santaluces Community High School in Lantana on Saturday, February 26, 2011. Students squared off in racing mousetrap powered model cars, launch model rockets, build and break balsa wood bridges; in general knowledge games during the "Brain Bowl"; and in literary and artistic competitions with essays, banners, and posters.

The competition of cogitators was fierce, but the Hawks, those gladiators of grey matter, came in third in the poster competition, second in the water bottle rocket competition, and first in the banner competition. This put overall Olympiad performance second in the entire district! Principal Lynne McGee, and Erich Landstrom and Ed Batchelor, the school SECME coordinators, congratulate the Hawks on their awesome achievements! Team captain Cindy Dosch commented “Proud of you guys! We did awesome against all odds.” Freshman Sam Smith posted “Today, those months of work on that mousetrap car came into fruition, and the hard work showed. It destroyed the competition without a problem, and couldn’t have done better on the test run. Even though it didn’t place, and we have our suspicions as to why it didn’t, I’m proud of Murphy’s Law, because it has overcome every one of the obstacles it was presented with.”

2011 Seminole SECME Olympiad

POSTER: Students create posters based on the Olympiad's theme “SECME: STEMulating Minds”
• Third Place: Seminole Ridge

Poster, 3rd place: senior Brie Codner Poster, 3rd place: senior Brie Codner

BANNER: Students create banners based on the Olympiad's theme. Banners must contain the school mascot and SECME logo.
• First Place: Seminole Ridge

WATER ROCKET: Students build a model rocket around a standard 2 liter soda bottle. All teams must have: rocket (constructed and launch-ready); design drawing blueprint of rocket; technical report on rocket; and mission patch design. At the Olympiad, rockets will be "fueled" with 355 milliliters of water and 60 PSI of air pressure. The rocket with the greatest combined "hang time" airborne and score will be declared the winner
• Second Place: Seminole Ridge

Water bottle rocket, 2nd place: Chris Garrett (retired rocket engineer with Pratt & Whitney) Damian Coleman, Cindy Dosch

Water bottle rocket, 2nd place: Damian Coleman, Cindy Dosch

OVERALL HIGH SCHOOL PALM BEACH COUNTY CHAMPION:

• Second Place: Seminole Ridge High

• First Place: Suncoast High Seminole SECME - 2nd place Olympiad overall in the county!

MOUSETRAP CAR: Students build cars that are propelled by the spring of a mousetrap. All teams must have a mousetrap car (constructed and running), design drawing blueprint of mousetrap vehicle (MTV), technical report on MTV construction and operations. A combination of the scores from the race, the report, and the drawing is used to determine the winner.
Mousetrap Vehicle: Sam Smith and Cody Summerlin

Inspecting the Mousetrap Vehicle: (left to right) Sam Smith, Cody Summerlin, Dr. Thelma Jackson, and AJ Fandrey

BRAIN BOWL: Students compete against the clock and each other in a quiz show style contest filled with science and math questions.
left to right: Arnold Banner, Joe Pavicic, Yiro Shimabukuro, Robert Botkin



SECME is too serious to be taken seriously
SECME is too serious to be taken seriously
Seminole SECME Captain Cindy Dosch holding aloft our trophy
GO HAWKS!

Invitation to The SECME K-12 STEM Summer Institute Experience

The 35th Annual SECME Summer Institute K-12 STEM Summer Institute Experience

Experience STEM professional development the way you would design it!

• You want to experience the opportunities a national Institute has to offer.
  
• You want to experience the "best of the best" in their fields of expertise.
  
• You want to experience tested, hands-on, inquiry-based activities that you can use in your classroom.
  
• You want to experience innovative classroom activities that you can use while on a shoe-string (or no-string!) budget.
  
• You want to experience activities aligned to national standards.
  
• You want to experience time to network with like-minded, dynamic educators that have a passion for getting kids excited about STEM.

SECME: STEMulating Minds!
You would design your professional development to experience all this... and more. SECME listened – This year's Summer Institute theme says it all. Join us for the only professional development Institute dedicated to bring K-12 educators, university faculty, and industry and government experts together with a focus on "learning and doing science, technology, engineering, and math."Are You

Interested in Attending?
Please take a moment to respond:
Yes, I would like to register now ** Please have your method of payment readily available when registering (Credit Card, PO Number, or Invoice – please specify who to invoice)

Yes, I want to attend, BUT... I need to speak with my administrator and I will respond later.

No, I will be unable to attend

View Event Website

Having trouble with the link? Simply copy and paste the entire address listed below into your web browser: http://guest.cvent.com/d/hwRKubM7DEGNwqTubl54Rw/bn51/P1/1Q?

We look unbelievable!

DJ Y alias JY - The Unbelievable Look (Mashup) from checkdissout on Vimeo.

The Olympiad is this Saturday the 22nd at Santaluces High School, and our submissions look unbelievable! Check it out.

FAU Owls host 2011 E-Week Expo

Our SECME group attended Florida Atlantic University’s Engineering Week pre-college presentation February 22 to hear speakers Karl Stevens (dean of FAU’s college of engineering and computer science) and Larry Port (co-founder and chief software architect of Rocket Matter, which provides online legal practice management software). During lunch, SRHS competed against other high schools from Broward and Palm Beach counties in the banner, pop fly launcher, and touchdown lander design challenges.

Our students won first place for their banner artwork, third place for their foot-powered mini-catapult launcher, and first place again for their lander, which cushioned their ping-pong payload during a five-foot freefall. The Hawks also showcased their VEX robot playing ‘Round Up’ during a robotic demonstration and explored the Science Explorium in Boca Raton.

1st place banner
2010 SECME Student of the Year for Palm Beach County, FL: Shelby Weininger

FAU College of Engineering

Science Explorium

Did you know....you can read about the district's successful Black male high school students?

SECME senior Brian Bartles
Did you know that you can now read about the district’s high school-nominated Successful Black High School Males, like Seminole Ridge's Brian Bartles? The Council of the Great City Schools, a national education organization, asked the nation’s sixty largest school systems to send information about successful Black males in our schools. We asked the high schools, they responded and we decided to make it a Palm Beach County School District project to recognize our own students. Learn about these remarkable student role models, their outstanding high school accomplishments and their expectations for college and careers. Go to the district’s Web page, www.palmbeachschools.org and click on the Black History Month Banner that will take you to the African and African American Studies Web page and then click on Successful Black Males located on the right side of the Web page.

Hawks hold up in NSB qualifiers, lose playoffs to Palmetto

Seminole Ridge Community High School SECME 2011 "Brain Bowl" teams
Seminole Ridge SECME students were fast with physical science facts, math formulas, and most importantly their fingers at Florida International University on Saturday, February 22, 2011 during the Science Bowl.

Science Bowl is an academic competition that offers a chance for teams of high school students from across the state to match their mental abilities in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. Teams compete in this fast-paced "jeopardy" style, head-to-head competition, which includes preliminary and double-elimination matches. In this competition students answer either multiple-choice or short-answer questions relating to science and math facts or concepts.

Seminole Ridge sent two of the twenty-five teams from south Florida that competed in six division during the round robin regional qualifiers. The Seminole SECME silver team consisted of Captain Edwin Keo (senior), Arnold Banner (senior), Justin Bishop (senior), John Gonzalaz (senior), David Lopez (senior) and CJ Galko (junior). The Ridge's red team consisted or Captain Robert Botkin (junior), Caitlin Miller (junior), Duncan Miller (senior), Joe Pavicic (senior) and Yiro Shimabakuro (senior).

The Ridge's red team consisted or Captain Robert Botkin (junior), Caitlin Miller (junior), Duncan Miller (senior), Joe Pavicic (senior) and Yiro Shimabakuro (senior).
The Seminole SECME silver team consisted of Captain Edwin Keo (senior), Arnold Banner (senior), Justin Bishop (senior), John Gonzalaz (senior), David Lopez (senior) and CJ Galko (junior).
This year, the silver Hawks after correctly answering rapid-fire questions in several disciplines--physics, math, astronomy, biology, chemistry, energy and earth sciences-- to advance to the double elimination bracket with three wins and two losses during the round robin. In playoffs they first fell to Miami Palmetto Senior High School (Miami, FL), 147-46, then were overcome by challenger Cypress Bay High School (Weston, FL) by a score of 156-38

More than 15,000 students across the U.S. vie for a trip to Washington, D.C. to compete at the National Science Bowl hosted by the United States Department of Energy on May 2nd. Only 520 make it. Even the students who don't earn a trip to the finals agree that competing in the Science Bowl bolsters their understanding and their outlook.

Captain Keo said, "We did pretty well in the competition. We managed to get into the double elimination, and our 8th match/round was our absolute loss!" He thinks his team did a good job and commented, "We all had our share of Fail moments." CJ Galko agreed, "We did a lot better than I thought we would and it was a lot of fun."
Seminole Ridge Community High School SECME "Brain Bowl" team
Even President Obama and the First Lady have caught the enthusiasm for the Science Bowl. Mikayla Nelson, a high school freshman from Billings, Mont., sat with First Lady Michelle Obama at this year's State of the Union Address. Nelson earned her place there by leading her team to a first place finish at the National Middle School Science Bowl for the design document of the team's solar car. The President also noted in his address to the country that, "We need to teach our kids that it's not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair…"

Congratulations to Osmel Rodriguez and American Heritage School for winning the South Florida Regional 2011! And here's a clip of former Physics Bowl members struggling with some social science questions, courtesy of CBS's The Big Bang Theory.

Brain Bowlers - directions to FIU

Brain Bowlers - NSB check-in will begin at 7:30 AM in the second floor lobby of the Graham University Center at the Modesto Maidique Campus of FIU (107th ave and SW 8th in Miami). There are two parking garages very close. Click link for directions.


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Del Prado Elementary, Roosevelt Elementary, Glade View Elementary, and Beacon Cove Intermediate Take the Top Spots at the 2011 Palm Beach County SECME

Over five hundred students from 52 schools participated in the 2011 Palm Beach County SECME Elementary Olympiad on February 12 at Santaluces High School. The following schools were the overall district winners:
1st Del Prado Elementary School
2nd Roosevelt Elementary School
3rd Glade View Elementary School
4th Beacon Cove Intermediate School

2011 Engineers Week Celebration at FAU

The students, faculty and staff at FAU's College of Engineering and Computer Science are excited to announce National Engineers Week 2011: "Engineering Innovation," to take place February 19 - 24. This year's activities will help cultivate, honor and celebrate the achievements of engineers, while focusing on the advances engineers have made and continue to make through the process of innovation, entrepreneurship and development.

The 2011 Engineers Week committee, made up of dedicated FAU engineering students, is working together with faculty and staff to develop an outstanding lineup for Engineers Week. Highlights include a kick-off lunch and car show, a distinguished speaker, an interactive program for middle and high school students, the Engineering Leadership Symposium with engineering focused competitions and a laser light show.

Direction from Seminole Ridge High to Science Explorium and FAU in Boca Raton

Florida Atlantic University is a proud participant of National Engineers Week. Every February, the College of Engineering and Computer Science hosts various student and community outreach activities in an effort to increase awareness about the profession of engineering and to honor the achievements of engineers. In 2011, the pre-college program featured:

10:30am Pre-College Program Opening Ceremony in Live Oak Pavilion
Banner Competition
Welcome: Brenda Simmons, DESS Director
Greetings: Dean Karl K. Stevens, College of Engineering and Computer Science
Featured Speaker: Larry Port, Rocket Matter, Co-Founder & Chief Software Architect

11:30am-1:00pm Lunch/Competitions/Displays
Pop Fly Launcher Competition
Touch Down Lander Competition
Ocean Energy Display
SAE Race Car Simulation

1:00pm Presentation of Awards
1:15pm Departure

Let's Build Something Together: Pop-Fly

That was fun! Thank you to manager Rick Case and the staff of Lowe's Home Improvement store #0654, Sam Smith and Cody Summerlynn for your help yesterday at the SECME Elementary Olympiad. You were indispensible for the success of the inagural Lowe's "Let's Build Something Together" Challenge: Pop-Fly!


Here are the scores for the challenge solution:
Honorable Mention: tied at 90 pts - Berkshire Elementary (50 + 40) and South Glade (50 + 40)
Third Place: at 110 pts - Whispering Pines Elementary (60 + 50)
Second Place: tied at 120 ppts - Discovery Key Elementary (50 + 70) and Palm Beach Public Elementary (60 + 60)
First Place: at 130 pts - Timber Trace Elementary (70 + 60)

Our team, our time, our title.

Seminole Ridge SECME 2010-2011 Yearbook Photo


The Crystal Method - Now Is The Time (Vote '08 remix) 320 MP3


Saturday, February 19
Brain Bowl team only: US Dept of Energy National Science Bowl

Tuesday, February 22 from 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science in celebrating Engineers Week 2011
Seniors only
Engineers Week Celebration activities will include
• Guest speaker
• High School Banner competition
• Robotics demonstrations (by high school teams)
• Lowe's "Lets Build Something Together" Challenges
• Tours of the Solar Panels & Labs
• A showcase of FAU engineering student organizations
• Giveaways
• Free lunch

Saturday, February 26 from 8:00 AM – 3:30 PM
SECME engineering Olympiad for secondary schools at Santaluces High School, 6880 Lawrence Rd. Lantana, FL 33462-3599

The competition will be brutal when students from 52 elementary schools, 14 middle schools, and 15 high schools participate in one of two Palm Beach County SECME District Olympiads scheduled for February.

SECME (Science, Engineering, Communication, and Mathematics Enrichment) is a national organization with the goal of increasing the pool of students who will be prepared to enter and complete post-secondary studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, thus creating a diverse and globally competitive workforce.

The Elementary SECME District Olympiad will be held Saturday, February 12, from 8:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. at Santaluces High School.

The Secondary SECME District Olympiad will be held Saturday, February 26, from 8:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. at Santaluces High School.

During each of the Olympiads, students will participate in a variety of competitions which will include bridges, mousetrap cars, water rockets, Brain Bowl, essays, poems, banners, and posters. The theme for this year’s SECME program is “SECME: STEMulating Minds.” STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.The winning entries in the essay and mousetrap car competitions will advance to the SECME National Student Competition which will be held on June 25, at The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa.

Olympiad supporters include: Florida Atlantic University College of Engineering and Computer Science, Hazen and Sawyer, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, CH2M Hill, and FPL. Florida Atlantic University awards up to 25 four-year scholarships each year to qualified SECME students. SECME participation has been credited for encouraging career and occupational selections, stimulating college and university visitations, as well as establish mentoring and internship programs for students with area businesses. Bruce Wear, SECME district coordinator, says the competitions develop high-level thinking and problem-solving skills. “SECME is an excellent program that provides students with opportunities to apply “hands on” problem solving techniques to real engineering challenges. They get to design, test, re-design, and re-test until they produce a working model – pretty much the same way engineers do their jobs.”

Technical Report for Mousetrap Vehicle

EDITOR'S NOTE: For a change, the comments are being left ON. I welcome and would appreciate your thoughts -- this technical report has not been scored yet, so it will be interesting for your feedback to compare & contrast with the judges. Just keep it (pardon the pun) constructive! :D

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Abstract
My team consisted of 4 freshmen in high school, we were all friends and we decided to work as a team to complete a mousetrap vehicle. The mousetrap vehicle in question is a triangular, four wheeled, balsa wood vehicle. It uses the potential energy stored in the spring of the mousetrap car to move. A string attached to the rear axle of the vehicle is also connected to the end of the straightened arm of the mousetrap. When you pull the arm back and wind the string around the axle it creates tension and potential energy. When the arm is released this energy is transformed into kinetic energy and thus the vehicle moves. This report is about how we accomplished this feat.

Upside Down

Figure This! What letters, when written in lowercase, can be read the same upside down as right side up?

Hint: Write out each lowercase letter and look at it in different ways.

Symmetry is a basic geometric concept. Understanding how one part of an object mirrors the rest is important in art, design, medicine and other fields. An ambigram (for those who didn’t read Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” or see the movie) has rotational symmetry, so it can read the same upside down as right side up.

Solution is in the comments.