"IM" IS OUT - THINK IT'S POSSIBLE! Hawks Fly 2nd Place Finish

THINK IT'S imPOSSIBLE? THINK sySTEMatically. THINK SECME! Seminole Ridge SECME takes second place during district engineering Olympiad

Seminole Ridge SECME is the winner of five trophies and ribbons at the 2013 SECME Olympiad engineering competition, including second place overall for Palm Beach County! Teams from sixteen high schools in Palm Beach County participated in the engineering contests at Santaluces Community High School in Lantana on Saturday, February 23, 2013. Students squared off in competition to race mousetrap powered model cars, launch model rockets, build and break model balsa wood bridges; in general knowledge games during the "Brain Bowl"; and in literary and artistic competitions with essays, banners, and posters.

(Photo: the SRHS SECME team; front row, L-R: Mr. Ed Batchelor and Mr. Erich Landstrom; back row: Nicholas Smith, Kimberly Smith, Kyle Reilly, Patrick Dickson, Kyle Whirlow, Victoria Simmons, James Carter, Cody Summerlin, Jarrett Rimel, and Sam Smith.)

The competition of cogitators was fierce. And the Hawks soared high: honorable mention - balsawood bridge; second place - banner; second place - water rocket (Team Seniors); first place - water rocket (Team Osprey); second place overall in the entire district! Coaches Erich Landstrom and Ed Batchelor, the school SECME coordinators, and principal James Campbell congratulate the Hawks on their awesome achievements.

(Click on the first picture to flip through the Seminole SECME team competing at Santaluces High School for the 2013 Palm Beach County School District SECME Olympiad on Saturday, February 23, 2013)

20130213 SDPBC SECME Olympiad

This Is Why We Will Win the Olympiad This Year, Part II

Free Heroin, And Other Ideas That Won't Get You Elected

Earlier this summer, NPR's Planet Money assembled five prominent economists from across the political spectrum and gave them a simple task: Identify major economic policies they could all stand behind. In this podcast, they talk to those economists again. Episode 402: Free Heroin, And Other Ideas That Won't Get You Elected This time, we hear a bunch of the ideas some of them liked but others shot down — including free heroin for addicts, and $2 trillion in new deficit spending on infrastructure projects. It's amazing to hear the economists clash over engineering, beginning at the 7m30s mark. ASME has identified roads and bridges that nationwide need repair or replacing, to the cost of $2 trillion. Robert Frank, professor of management and economics at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management, is for government spending. Russ Roberts, George Mason University economics professor, is his ideological opponent. Not so fast, Russ says. You can't trust engineers to make a decision where they might make money. As the saying goes, the fix is in. What do you think?

Model Bridge Design

The mission of GarrettsBridges.com is to provide Excellence in Education and Customer Service to help students of all ages learn about model bridges. Model Bridge Design is the place where model bridge builders of all ages come to learn. Glean valuable tips and tricks from award winning builders for designing and building model bridges of various kinds, including Balsa wood, Basswood, popsicle stick and toothpick bridges. Whether you are building for fun or competition, a weekend project or school assignment, you will find something you can use here.

Drop It, Build It Engineering Competition 2012

Drop It, Build It, Fly It, Launch It, Thrill It 2013

Di-Bi-Fi-Li-Ti is a design competition for cash prizes challenges kids to build an unbreakable balsawood bridge, create the perfect carton to protect a raw egg from a 3-story drop, fold and fly the farthest-flung paper airplane, blast off the best water bottle rocket for max time airborne, and create a thrill-packed roller coaster. The South Florida Science Museum in partnership with the Florida Engineering Society provides a premiere out-of-school STEM competition to elementary, middle and high school students offering substantial cash prizes for the top four finishers in each of the five engineering categories:

1. Drop It: Design and build a shipping container that will prevent an uncooked egg from breaking when dropped from two successive heights, up to 50 feet.
2. Build It: Given a range of physical dimensions and using appropriate building materials, construct the lightest truss-frame bridge capable of supporting the greatest weight.
3. Fly It: Given a sheet of paper, design an airplane that will fly the longest distance.
4. Launch It: Construct a rocket propelled by “fuel” (12 ounces of water) and air compressed to 60 psi that will be launched at a predetermined angle to reach the maximum height and flight time possible.
5. Thrill It: Design a roller coaster to convey a marble or steel ball within designated parameters, so that it stays rolling the longest, is the most interesting to view and has a theme.

Enjoy a fun filled family day of science and engineering exploration on Saturday, March 9, 2013 from 8 AM to 3:30 PM. Students are responsible for their own transportation to and from the event.

More information is available online at http://www.sfsm.org/

Technical Drawing for Balsawood Bridge

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


Excerpt of technical drawing for balsawood bridge

Technical Report for Balsawood Bridge

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 constructive, if you'll pardon the pun! :D

Design Philosophy and Construction Procedure
As stated in the introduction, we used the Warren Truss, with slight alterations, for our design. Even before we began our research, our design was based on common sense, intuition and prior experience. With force being applied to the truss we knew that we had to build a design where it was distributed and transferred to the supports with as little stress as possible to the bridge. The top of the bridge is where the compression is located when force is applied, and if not handled appropriately the bridge will snap inwards; while if there’s too much tension, on the bottom of the bridge, it will slide apart and buckle. Knowing this, we decided to use equilateral and isosceles triangles, with 60-60-60 and 90-45-45 degrees to dissipate the force being placed on the bridge by both gravity and the machine.
The force of gravity (weight) is equal to the product of the mass of the bridge times the acceleration due to gravity, in accord with Newton’s 2nd law of motion (Fnet=ma). According to the 3rd law of motion, the bridge tester will exert a normal force back on the bridge that is equal in force to weight but opposite in direction. The bridge testing machine will apply force equal to the product of pressure times area (P = F/A or F = PA). The pressure will also be equal to the work done by the tester over the volume of the bridge, where work is the product of force times distance time cosine of the angle relative to the direction of motion (W=Fd cos θ), and volume is area times depth (V=Ad). So (P = W/V = Fd cos θ/Ad). As the crusher does it’s work, the force of the load is transmitted along our beams. That stress will cause deformation from shearing and strain of extension and compression as previously stated once we pass the point of elasticity (Young’s modulus).
Our first design used the triangular method, with two sides at an angle connected by a roadway, but on our bottom beam we had vertical pieces of would which we soon realized would snap under the stress of compression and used too much wood. Our second design consisted of three major triangles with one smaller one inside of the middle triangle all at 60 degrees. The change leading to our third and last design was adding another beam for more support and changing our corresponding triangles to equal angles with our major ones being isosceles or equilateral.
Although it may’ve been better to stand the whole bridge at an angle, we have it at 90 degrees, with space between, hopefully to displace the force with greater efficacy. The goal of our BBB bridge is to attain the highest amount of efficiency possible with the given materials. Efficiency is measured by taking the ratio of the mass of the bridge itself compared to the mass that the bridge can hold. That number is then multiplied by 100 to discover the percent of efficiency. A highly efficient bridge would have its own weight at minimum and the amount of weight it could hold, at maximum.

Bridge Construction
After the team agreed to on final design, we gathered the needed materials necessary to construct the bridge: one-quarter by one-quarter inch (¼” x ¼”) balsa wood thirty-six inches long (36”) provided for us by our SECME coordinator, and we began to cut the pieces. Beam lengths were as determined by competition rules (EX: no member shorter than two inches (2”)). Angles were joined at 60-60-60 and 90-45-45 degrees. Pieces were adhered together with cyanoacrylate glue. We allowed the glue time to dry with each piece so it would not compromise the structure of the bridge.

Top view: roadway span: 45 cm in length by 4.5 cm in width
End view: roadway span: 4.5 cm in width by 1.3 cm in depth, attached to truss 18 cm in height by 4.5 cm in width
Side view: total bridge height of 18 cm, with central truss height clearance of 2 cm and width clearance of 45 cm

Conclusion
As foreboding as this task was in the beginning, we predict that our bridge will do pretty well. With an understanding of how the force of gravity and the testing machine cause tension and compression on the bridge, we presume to have designed and built a bridge to withstand the stress, strain and sheering being placed on it. However, if we were to voice concern over possible failure areas it would be at the intersection of our 45/60 degree angles. Seeing as how the force is being directed towards the center of the bridge there’s a fear that tension will occur resulting in movement of supporting beams.

Selected Bibliography
- NOVA Online | Super Bridge. (n.d.). PBS. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/
- "BrainPOP | Technology | Learn about Bridges." BrainPOP - Animated Educational Site for Kids - Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts. Web. 18 Jan. 2012. http://www.brainpop.com/technology/scienceandindustry/bridges/.

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

Truss us - we know what we're doing!

20110921 Bridge Breaking

(Click on the first picture to flip through the photostream)

We tested by placing the dowel halfway along the bridge so it runs across the center span. We used chain to hang the bucket off the dowel, and slowly add more and more sand to the bucket until the bridge breaks. The bucket is then weighed, and structural efficiency determined. Divide the load the bridge held by the weight of the bridge. The higher the load/weight ratio, the stronger the bridge! A good design spreads the force over a greater area, or moves the force from an area of weakness to an area of strength. Triangles are a strong shape that transfer the load from just one point to a much wider area. A bridge will buckle when the force of compression is greater than its ability to handle being shortened. A bridge will snap when the force of tension overcomes its ability to handle stretching.

Amazing Podcast from Planet Money on Bridge Building

You know we do bridge building in SECME and at "Drop It, Build It, Fly It, Launch It, Thrill It." So I listened to this "Planet Money" podcast today, and if you have a few minutes I think you'll enjoy listening to it as well. Especially since the bridge is crumbling and will need to be replaced in the two decades, at a potential cost of $6 BILLION dollars.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/09/139276566/the-tuesday-podcast-a-big-bridge-in-the-wrong-place

You would never look at a map of the Hudson River, point to the spot where the Tappan Zee Bridge is, and say, "Put the bridge here!"

The Tappan-Zee crosses one of the widest points on the Hudson — the bridge is more than three miles long. And if you go just a few miles south, the river gets much narrower.

Our question for today's show: Why did they build a three-mile-long bridge when they could have built a much shorter, cheaper bridge nearby?

Our search for an answer leads us to a forensic engineer, the Statue of Liberty, and a governor who wanted to be an opera singer.

Smart Bridges

Can we engineer bridges that tell us what's wrong with them before it's too late?


Program Description
After the Minneapolis Interstate 35 bridge collapsed in 2007, millions became nervous about crossing long highway spans. What can be done to avert the next catastrophe? One technique probes bridge supports with ultrasonic sound waves, searching for "sour notes" that signal damaged metal, while another uses nanotechnology to create a coating that detects structural damage beneath its surface.

Watch the full episode. See more NOVA scienceNOW.

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!

BrainPOP

BrainPOP resources for balsawood bridge building

Building Basics
http://www.brainpop.com/technology/scienceandindustry/buildingbasics/

Bridges
http://www.brainpop.com/technology/scienceandindustry/bridges/

Scale Drawing
http://www.brainpop.com/math/ratioproportionandpercent/scaledrawing/

BrainPOP is a group of educational websites with hundreds of short (5 minutes or shorter) Flash-based movies for students in grades K-12 (ages 6 to 17) covering the subjects of science, mathematics, engineering and technology, arts and music, health, social studies, and English. BrainPOP movies may be used to introduce a new lesson or topic, for illustrating complex subject matter or to review before a test. Content is aligned to USA state education standards and is searchable. In addition to movies, the site displays quizzes, games, experiments and other related content that students can use interactively to reinforce the lessons in the movies. BrainPOP products are compatible with PCs, Macs, projectors and interactive whiteboards. No downloading, installation or special hardware is required.

The Little Moe MTV & Popsicle Stick Bridges

Seminole Ridge SECME: (l to r) Edwin Keo, Ryan Hamilton, and Yiro Shimabukuro

Seminole SECME meeting minutes for September 29, 2010
Meeting called to order at 3 PM by Captain R. Hamilton.

In-truss-ting, very interesting!

Monty Python and the Bridge of Death!

Bridge/Truss design seminar on Saturday, September 25th from 9 AM to 1 PM, at Palm Springs Middle School. Students are responsible for their own transportation to and from the seminar, ere the other side he see.



Coordinators are responsible for bringing all necessary materials and supplies to the workshop. Here is a list of items needed to construct the mini-bridge/trusses. Four different mini trusses will be constructed.
- ¼ by ¼ Balsawood (several pieces)
- Insta-Cure glue or Wood glue
- Paint brushes
- Wood cutter or hand saw (Miter Box recommended)
- Balsa cutters
- Sand paper
- Rulers and meter stick
- Wax paper

Directions to Palm Springs Middle School, 1560 Kirk Rd., West Palm Beach, FL: I-95 to Forest Hill Blvd. West to Kirk Rd. School on NE corner.

Field trip permission slips are required for participation. Please have your parent/legal guardian's approval before attending.

BONUS: Build a Bridge Out of Her! (ED. NOTE: I always think about this scene at the beginning of the school year when I teach about the scientific method...)

Bridge/Truss Design Seminar 9/25

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:
• Sat., Sept. 25—Bridge/Truss Design at Palm Springs Middle, 1560 Kirk Rd., West Palm Beach, FL
Directions: I-95 to Forest Hill Blvd. West to Kirk Rd. School on NE corner.

Field trip permission slips are required for participation. Please have your parent/legal guardian's approval before attending.

In the SECME program, students are required to design, build, and test a variety of engineering and research projects throughout the year. SECME student teams will construct balsawood bridges for structural efficiency. Cars powered solely by the spring from a mousetrap will race across gymnasium floors and water bottle rockets will launch into the air to maintaining the maximum hang time. Essays, artwork, and banners communicating student interpretations of this year’s theme, SECME: STEMulating Minds, will be displayed and judged.

The Olympiad competition is the culmination of projects completed as a result of classroom activities, and of students, parents, and teachers participating in Saturday engineering design seminars. The 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).

Popsicle Stick Bridges and Banner Brainstorm

Seminole SECME meeting minutes for September 9, 2010
Meeting called to order at 3 PM by Captain C. Dosch.

Reminders:
- $15 dues are due! Dues cover the costs of t-shirts and materials for projects
- permission slips for Saturday SECME design seminars field trips are due, signed by your parent/guardian next week.
- Banner Brainstorms are due next week, completed and colored, for judging.

New Business

Fibonacci Squares and Golden Spirals
Purpose:
SWBAT plot a mathematical relationship that defines a spiral
SWBAT use technology (graphing calculator) to plot a set of ordered pairs

SWBAT use technology (graphing calculator) to create spirals similar to that found in shells, hurricane storms, and spiral galaxies

Popsicle Stick Truss Bridge
Purpose:
- SWBAT (students will be able to) build a bridge spanning twelve inches that will hold 50 lbs. The bridge is to be made of only popsicle sticks and glue. By being limited to only two allowable materials - wood popsicle sticks and white glue - students will need to use creativity, ingenuity, and resourcefulness in order to maximize the strengths and minimize the inherent shortcomings of each material.
- SWBAT read drawings and models made to scale. As a part of the SECME engineering design competition, each team is required to prepare a scaled drawing depicting the project that they have designed and built.

Banner Brainstorm: a smART stART to inspire ART imagination

Engage: display Seminole SECME 2009 “Igniting Minds” Banner (2nd place trophy winner!)
Explain: powerpoint on Banner Competition
Explore: Complete Banner Brainstorm worksheet. Student plan placement, proportion, and use colored pencils.
NEXT WEEK Evaluate: smArt Gallery Walk. Banner Brainstorms are posted in different parts of the hallway. Teams rotate around, and reflect on work down by other groups.

Technical Drawing paper at Easel Art

To compete in the SECME Olympiad bridge design, mousetrap car design and the water rocket design competitions, a team must enter all parts of the design competition. A team must enter in all of the following categories for each competition a bridge technical drawing, a mousetrap car technical drawing, and a water rocket technical drawing.
Clearprint 24"x36" 16lb 1000H Title Block/Border Vellum

The bridge and the rocket drawings may be on either 22” x 34” or 24” x 36” size drawing paper. No margin is required around the outside of the drawing. No mounting of the drawing or frames are allowed.

For the mousetrap car, the size of the engineering paper is required to be the standard 18” x 24” (allowing for the drawn one inch margin, the actual drawing is to cover an exposed area of 16” x 22” of the paper), otherwise it will not be evaluated. No mounting of the drawing or frames are allowed.

Where can I get technical drawing paper?
Seminole SECME purchases technical drawing paper at Easel Art Center, 810 Park Ave, Lake Park, FL (south of Northlake Blvd). Easel is on the south side of the street and the east end of the plaza, located after the post office and oriental market. Their phone #561-844-3111

As of May 2010, their price for 24x26" plain paper (used for practice) was $1.75 and for 24x26" title boxed paper (used for the final submission) was $2.75. While no teacher discount was available, they were kind enough to give me a 10% student discount.

Success for Students at 2010 Seconday SECME Olympiad

On Saturday April 10, 2010, over 275 students from Palm Beach County Secondary schools participated in the Secondary SECME (Science, Engineering, Communication, Mathematics, Enrichment) Olympiad hosted by Santaluces High School. Students participated in a variety of competitions which included banners, brain bowl, bridges, essays, mousetrap cars, posters, and water rockets.

The 2010 overall district champions for both High School and Middle School are:

High School:
• 1st Place Overall – Suncoast High School
• 2nd Place Overall – Seminole Ridge Community High School
• 3rd Place Overall – Boca Raton High School
• Honorable Mention Overall – Royal Palm Beach High School