SECME Design Seminars: Plan It, Build It, Live It!

Design Seminars to “Plan It, Build It, Live It!”

In the SECME program, students are required to design, build, and test a variety of engineering research projects throughout the year. SECME student teams will construct balsawood bridges for structural strength, cars powered solely by the spring from a mousetrap to race across gymnasiums, and water bottle rockets to launch for maximum hang time. Essays, artwork, and banners communicating student interpretations of this year’s theme, “SECME: Plan It Build It, Live It” will be displayed and judged. The engineering Olympiad competition in February is the culmination of projects completed as a result of classroom activities, and of students, parents, and teachers participating in Saturday engineering design seminars. Design seminars familiarize students with the events in the annual Olympiad completion. They provide the people, the place, and the parts to work on SECME submissions. Students also interact with practicing engineers who help them understand the importance of education in the global economy with the ultimate goal of encouraging students to pursue postsecondary degrees in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Please plan on attending!

The School District of Palm Beach County and the SECME South Florida Industry Partners are hosting the following design seminars this autumn. All seminars are from 9 AM to 1 PM.

Students are responsible for their own transportation to and from the seminars, and their own meals:

• Thur. Nov 3 @ 4:30 PM—Technical reports and drawings drafting at Fulton-Holland Educational Services Center. Coordinators only.
Directions: I-95 to Forest Hill Blvd. Go west on Forest Hill past Congress Ave. Turn left at Davis Road. Building is on left.

• Sat., Nov. 19—Mousetrap Vehicles and Bridges at H.L. Johnson Elementary, 1000 Crestwood Blvd. N., Royal Palm Beach, FL 33411
Directions: I-95 to Okeechobee Blvd. West to Royal Palm Beach Blvd. Turn north on Royal Palm Bch. Blvd. School on west side of street.

• Thur. Dec 8 @ 4:30 PM—Banner/Poster/Brain Bowl at Fulton-Holland Educational Services Center. Coordinators only.
Directions: I-95 to Forest Hill Blvd. Go west on Forest Hill past Congress Ave. Turn left at Davis Road. Building is on left.

• Sat., Dec. 10—Bottle Rockets Design at Don Estridge Middle, 1798 NW Spanish River Blvd., Boca Raton, FL
Directions: I-95 to Yamato Road. West to Military Trail. South to next light--Spanish River Blvd. Go east on Spanish River Blvd. School is on south side.

• Thur., Dec 15 @ 4:30 PM— Mousetrap Care at Fulton-Holland Educational Services Center. Coordinators only.
Directions: I-95 to Forest Hill Blvd. Go west on Forest Hill past Congress Ave. Turn left at Davis Road. Building is on left.

• Thur. Jan 12 @ 4:30 PM—DEADLINE: Registration, Rocket Patch, Essay, Technical reports and drawings due at Fulton-Holland Educational Services Center. Coordinators only.
Directions: I-95 to Forest Hill Blvd. Go west on Forest Hill past Congress Ave. Turn left at Davis Road. Building is on left.

• Sat., Feb 11 @ 8 AM—SECME Elementary Olympiad at Santaluces High, 6880 Lawrence Rd., Lantana, FL 33462
Directions: I-95 to Hypoluxo Rd. West to Lawrence Rd. School is on NE intersection of Hypoluxo and Lawrence Rd.

• February TBA—Florida Atlantic University Engineers Week Event
Directions: I-95 to Hypoluxo Rd. West to Lawrence Rd. School is on NE intersection of Hypoluxo and Lawrence Rd.

• Sat., Feb 25 @ 8 AM—SECME Secondary Olympiad at Santaluces High, 6880 Lawrence Rd., Lantana, FL 33462
Directions: I-95 to Hypoluxo Rd. West to Lawrence Rd. School is on NE intersection of Hypoluxo and Lawrence Rd.

• April TBA—SECME Annual “Celebration of Achievements” Awards Banquet

12 oz H2O + 60 psi air = 1 good time

Seminole Ridge SECME attended a water rocket design seminar, hosted by Discovery Key Elementary in Lake Worth on Saturday, October 29, 2011. The seminar was lead by Chris Garrett, PE and recently retired rocket engineer from Pratt Whitney.
(Click on the first picture to flip through the photostream)

20111026 WSRH News coverage of "Give Blood - It's Not Rocket Science"

Thank you everyone for supporting the October blood drive. We broke our own school records! We registered 243 people, collected 191 units, and we were short a mobile! It broke down on the way to our school.

We do realize that students were in the lobby/on the mobiles longer. We even had to turn some of our afternoon appointments away as a result. Otherwise, we would have reached our goal of 200 units!

Thanks to the SECME/Mr. Landstrom's students for launching rockets in donors names! The theme was Give Blood: It's Not Rocket Science!

Dates of next drives: January 30 Odd, April 30 Even, May 30 Odd (new donors only)

We want to thank you for your support with the interruptions in class. Mrs. Smith/Mrs. Muckle were calling down the students who had not shown up at their designated time to donate. This is done to ensure students are not skipping or abusing the opportunity. Students should be coming back to class with their appt. card signed/time stamped.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.
Shawna and Stacey
NHS

Lady Liberty

Happy 125th Anniversary to the The Statue of Liberty! Liberty Enlightening the World is a colossal neoclassical sculpture in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886.

CLICK HERE to revisit November's math challenge to figure this:
The right arm of the Statue of Liberty is 42 feet long. How long is her nose?

Brains and Heart! Seminole SECME's annual "Give Blood = It's Not Rocket Science" blood drive

Seminole Ridge High National Honor Society and SECME students hosted a blood drive at school on Wednesday, October 26 from 7:30 AM to 1:00 PM. Our theme is “GIVE BLOOD—IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.” It’s a fun and unique way to teach people how easy it is to save 3 lives; much simpler than the science, engineering, and math (STEM) that it takes to blast off a water rocket.
(Click on the first picture to flip through the photostream)

20111026 Give Blood It's Not Rocket Science

For each pint of blood donated, SECME students celebrate with a rocket launch. The 2 liter bottle rockets are fired off with 60 PSI compressed air and a pint of water symbolical dyed red with food coloring.

To successfully launch, it takes the physics of projectile motion, the polynomial equations for parabolic paths, and the practice of precision engineering. But to donate blood, all a student needs is to be in good health, at least 16 years old, weigh at least 110 pounds, have turned in a signed parental consent form, and present a photo ID.

And Florida’s Blood Centers will donate approximately $20 per unit of blood collected to the Scholarship Assistance Foundation to support students with tuition assistance for attending colleges, universities, institutions, and technical centers by furthering their education in STEM subjects!

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Water Bottle Rocket Seminar on Saturday, 10/29

WATER BOTTLE ROCKET SEMINAR
Conducted by Chris Garrett, retired rocket scientist from Pratt & Whitney

WHERE: Discovery Key Elementary, 3350 Lyons Rd. Lake Worth, Fl. 33467

Directions: I-95 to 10th Ave. N. Go west to Jog Rd. South on Jog to Lake Worth Rd. West on Lake Worth Rd. to Lyons Rd. North on Lyons. School is on the right--past entrance to Cypress Woods development

WHEN: Saturday, Oct. 29th 9:00 am – 1:00 pm

WHAT TO BRING: (2) 2 LITER BOTTLES (PER STUDENT REQUIRED), PACKAGING TAPE, EASTER EGGS, PARTY HATS, DISPOSABLE PLATES (NOT CARDBOARD), PERMANENT MARKER, MEASURING TAPE OR RULER, SCISSORS, EXACTO KNIFE, AND EMPTY PAPER TOWEL ROLLS, NEWSPAPERS.

FOOD: Snacks and drinks available at $1.00, pizza $2.00/slice (Complete lunch $5.00: 2 slices of pizza, chips & soda)

Click on following link to register:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RKCGKKQ

REAL "Real Steel": Seminole SECME in Miami VEX Robotics Competition

(Click on the first picture to flip through the VRC Belen Jesuit Prep photostream)

20111022 VEX Belen Jesuit

(Click play to watch videos from VRC Belen Jesuit Prep)






Seminole Ridge students from VEX Robotics Competition (VRC) team “Underdogs” soared through the semifinals, but fell during the finals, at the Miami Official VEX Gateway qualifier hosted at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami this past weekend.

VRC team 1614 was comprised of 3 members: freshmen Bert Sivongsay, sophomore Jesse Mendheim, and junior Kadeem Spencer. To prepare for the competition, the group worked together to design and build a robot (with the assistance of sophomore Connor Piegaro) using the VEX Robotics Design System that could quickly and efficiently solve specific obstacles and challenges that come with playing the game VEX Gateway.

The action-packed day required middle and high school students to execute VRC Gateway, a game played on a 12’x12’ square field. Two alliances – one “red” and one “blue” – composed of two teams each, compete in matches consisting of a twenty-second autonomous period followed by two minutes of driver-controlled play. The object of the game is to attain a higher score than your opponent alliance by scoring barrels and balls in goals, earning bonus points and doubling or negating goals. As tournament finalists, the team has qualified for the chance to compete during the VEX Robotics Competition World Championship in California against top teams from over 20 countries worldwide.

While the Red Alliance of Team 4411A “WARwolf ROBOTICS” from the TERRA Environmental Research Institute and Team 5959 “RAMTECH” from Miami Coral Park Senior High School won the event overall, many other teams received esteemed awards. Award-winners included Seminole SECME’s Blue Alliance partners, Team 4330N “Invention” from Ransom Everglades Middle School in Miami.

Seminole Ridge SECME Team 1614 will be competing in the upcoming South Florida Championship VRC on Sunday, December 4, 2011 at Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami. The event is open and free for media, families, and other community members to attend.

The Underdogs team raises funds to cover the cost of the robot parts, competition entry fees and transportation expenses by outreaching to the local community for support. Please support STEM education. You can help us by making your direct donation to Seminole SECME. Learn more about Adopt-A-Classroom at http://tinyurl.com/AdoptSeminoleSECME . Give $3, $30, or $300 -- all financial gifts are welcome.

Erich Landstrom, the team’s advisor said, “I am proud of these students for their ability. The students competed with and against 32 teams from south Florida, rising to become one of the final four teams at the end. We are building more than robots here - we are shaping our future innovators to positively impact the world around them.”

Each week, SECME students apply what they’ve learned about science, technology, engineering and math in order to build the semiautonomous machines. An equally important set of skills is learned through the competition -- communication, project management, site management and the importance of composure, because students have to learn to fail faster: not just how to win but also how to recover from losing. They work together on a variety of challenges and obstacles - requiring them to develop new problem-solving skills both individually and as a collective whole - as they think, create, build and amaze, to design a robot that they will use to compete in one of many tournaments throughout the year.

Joining a VEX Robotics Competition team enables students to experience a variety of roles on the team, and share responsibility for all aspects of the building, programming, designing and management process. No prior experience is required, just one’s imagination, desire to build, and willingness to be a team player.

Give Blood (But You May Find That Blood Is Not Enough).

Discover "E"

Our SECME engineering club recently hosted Mr. Jim Kunard, a professional civil engineer with 30 years’ experience ranging from power plant structures, high energy pipe stress analysis, and water management to parks, parking garages, fire stations, and libraries. Kunard is a past president of the Palm Beach chapter of the Florida Engineering Society and state chair of the society’s education outreach initiatives.

Kunard began his talk to our students by relating the practical applications of science, technology, engineering, and math to the world around us. He continued with a hands-on activity, making engineering fun by creating something cool: students built sections of a model suspension bridge, then connected their segments to see its full span. Kunard concluded his talk with examples and explanations of technical drawings.

20111019 FES Jim Kunard K'NEX
20111019 FES Jim Kunard and Seminole SECME KNEX
20111019 FES Jim Kunard vs Coach Batchelor

Mousetrap 201

Coach Ed Batchelor and sophmore Sam Smith

PE from Hazen Sawyer help Coral Reef Elementary student Lily Landstrom at SECME Mousetrap Vehicle design seminar

When Backsliding Becomes Radically Re-engineered Rocketry

Congrats to David, James & Joey. The backsliding rocket had 11 & 8 sec - new records for the Ridge! Congrats to David, James & Joey. The backsliding rocket had 11 & 8 sec - new records for the Ridge!

20111012 WBR Backslider

Backsliding is defined as “reverting to a worse condition.” But Seminole SECME is backsliding to move forward with rocketry. At the very least, backsliding should increase our stability.

What does it mean to be stable?
Stability: the tendency of the rocket to return to equilibrium, or balance.
This means if the rocket begins to wobble in flight, it will straighten back up on its own.

For a stable flight, the center of pressure must be below the center of gravity.
http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/rktstabc.html

Center of Gravity (or center of mass) is the point at which the entire weight of a body may be considered as concentrated so that if supported at this point the body would remain in equilibrium in any position. Center of Pressure is the point on a body where the sum of the total pressure acts. Pressure acting on a surface area causes a force.

One purpose of fins is to guarantee that the center of pressure stays below the center of mass of the rocket. See G. Harry Stine's “The Handbook of Model Rocketry”: It is generally agreed among advanced model rocketeers and has been generally confirmed by flight tests that the CP should be no less than one body diameter between the CG. This is known as 1-caliber stability (from the days when rockets were a part of the artillery corps of armies). If your model has more than 2 to 3 calibers stability, it may be overstable and suffer from excessive weathercocking (tendency to turn into the wind). For a two liter bottle, the diameter is 11 cm (4 ¼ inches).

Recovery Systems
- A recovery system is something that slows the rocket's decent.
- It can be active (like a balloon, a parachute or helicopter blades), or passive (like a backslider)

Backslider
A backslider is made by making the rocket’s CG close to the CP.
This prevents the rocket from turning over at apogee and instead floating down on its side.
The backslider encounters more air resistance because by design it encounters drag. It is not landing in an aerodynamically efficient fashion, with its nose first.
Fins on this type of rocket should be larger to help slow it down. This will also increase the stability of your rocket.

“Swing Testing” is a relatively simple test that you can use on a model rocket to determine the stability. Tie a string around the body tube at the location of the center of gravity. Then swing the rocket in a circle around you while holding the other end of the string. After a few revolutions, if the nose points in the direction of the rotation, the rocket is stable and the center of pressure is below the center of gravity. If the rocket wobbles, or the tail points in the direction of rotation, the rocket is unstable. You can increase the stability by lowering the center of pressure, increasing the fin area, for example, or by raising the center of gravity, adding weight to the nose. If the swing test fails, it doesn't necessarily mean the rocket is unstable. It may be proved stable using other methods: like the Barrowman Equations, or the RockSim software calculations. These other methods should be used when the swing test fails.

Support SECME with Direct Donations

Thank you Publix Super Market Charities! The success of our educational efforts can depend on the generous contributions from our corporate sponsors. We offer our appreciation and gratitude to Publix Super Market Charities for their $250 donation.

Teachers nationwide spend approximately $1,000 out of their own pockets each year to offset school budget shortfalls and ensure that their students have the necessary classroom resources for learning. Adopt-A-Classroom, a nonprofit organization, increases the opportunity for student success by providing teachers with community partners and funds for classroom resources and materials.

Seminole SECME has “early adopters” in Florida Power & Light. Funds from FP&L and PSMC will purchase parts the engineering club needs to build what will be the winning entries in the county’s annual engineering Olympiad.

Please support STEM education. You can help us by making your direct donation to Seminole SECME. Learn more about Adopt-A-Classroom at http://tinyurl.com/AdoptSeminoleSECME. Give $3, $30, or $300 -- all financial gifts are welcome.

Power of 10 Day

In 1977, Charles and Ray Eames made a nine-minute film for IBM called Powers of Ten that still has the capacity to expand the way we think and view our world. Starting with a sleeping man at a picnic, the film takes the viewer on a journey out to the edge of space and then back into a carbon atom in the hand of the man at the picnic, all in a single shot. It is an unforgettable experience.

Each October 10th, the Eames Office celebrates Powers of Ten Day to promote and share this method of viewing ideas from an infinitesimal to a cosmic perspective.

MATH GIRLS

MATH GIRLS is a YA novel, both teen romance & intro to higher mathematics; "like Glee for math nerds" said one reviewer. It's been translated from the Japanese by Bento Books.

It starts with a lonely female freshman on her first day of high school. Her escape is advanced mathematics. She tunes out the principal and starts think about her age as factorals (15 = 3x5, 16=2^4, 17 is a prime number). And then, she meets Miruka. And Tetra.

The math is good and the book covers a wide variety of topics in mathematics, from basics like how letters are assigned as variable names to quite challenging problems like finding a general term for the sequence of integer partition numbers.

Judge for yourself. The first two chapters available as a sample. Download the sample PDF here: Math Girls Chapters 1 & 2

The Feynman Series (part 1) - Beauty

The Feynman Series is a companion project of The Sagan Series working in the hopes of promoting scientific education and scientific literacy in the general population.

LCBC: The Next Generation

VEX team 1614 (go Underdogs!) at Seminole Ridge SECME. During this lesson in robotics they investigate the concepts underlying energy transfer; and through experiments they build an understanding of the relationships between forces and motion. It include demonstrations and hands-on experience examining electrical and kinetic energy, power, DC motors, torque, traction, fritction, simple machines, levers and gears, chains and sprockets , etc. In mathematics, students apply an understanding of ratio and proportion as they explore the relationship between gear ratios and the radius of a wheel.

20111005 VEX - SAE AWIM Gearbox

The SAE A World In Motion program brings science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to life right in the classroom. In the Motorized Toy Car challenge students develop new designs for electric gear driven toys.

Proportions, Pioneers, Phineas

SECME: Plan It, Build It, Live It
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SECME: Plan It, Built It, Live It

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