OC Visit

Today was a very exciting days for both the mentors and the mentees. The girls from John Marshall visited OC's campus to explore the engineering building, learn more about engineering and college life, and meet an astronaut!

Colonel Doug Wheelock of NASA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_H._Wheelock) spent a couple of days on OC's campus to visit with students, faculty, and alum about his faith in God and his work as an astronaut. He talked in chapel and in several forums to honors students, engineering students, and even the trustee board of OC. It was such an exciting thing to see an amazing man of God tell about his engineering skills and how he optimized them during his trip to space.


Before they met with Colonel Wheelock, the girls went on a campus tour with Teaven. They saw everything from the tennis courts to the auditoriums to the engineering building. Dr. David Cassels, an OC Mechanical Engineering professor, showed the girls OC's wind tunnel. Obviously not built on a huge scale, the wind tunnel was still definitely impressive.

Then, Jennifer demonstrated the robot that she designed, built, and programmed for the freshman class, Engineering Fundamentals. The girls loved it!













After their campus tour, we met up with the girls at a session that Colonel Wheelock was speaking at.

We concluded with Dr. Mitchell talking to the girls about the different ways that engineering is appreciated at OC. The girls definitely had fun with him! Their visit to OC was a success!

Balloon Races

Today was such a blast! Teaven lead the activity today with the main idea that "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Sound familiar? It is Newton's Third Law! The girls did not understand the law at the beginning of the hour, but by the end, they had it down pat.

We brought balloons, straws, and ribbon for the balloon races. The girls blew up their balloons and taped a straw to the surface of the balloon. Then they threaded ribbon through the straws so that the balloons were hanging off the ribbon. The most important factor was that they did not let go of their balloon so that all the original air remained in the balloon.




At least two girls raced against each other at one time by letting go of their balloons. The girl whose balloon reached the end of the ribbon first was the winner. Eventually, we created a "bracket" and the winner of the entire group got to pick a fun prize.


The girls learned about the opposite reaction to blowing up a balloon. They saw how letting the air out pushed the balloon to the other side of the ribbon. They also learned that the bigger they blew up their balloon, the faster and further the balloon traveled. Overall, they had a great time and we did too!

Wire Maze

This was our first project for the 2010 Spring semester. The goal of this project was to show the girls the meaning of a "complete circuit." Their first activity was to complete simple mazes on paper. As they did the mazes, they could see how similar mazes are to circuits.

We arrived soon afterward and introduced the main project. The girls were divided into four groups with one or two mentors per group. Each group was given a table top sized piece of butcher group to draw their own maze on. The groups were instructed to draw large mazes with lines that did not cross so that wire could be taped down over the pencil outline. The wires could not be fully connected at the start and finish points of the maze.

After the mazes were built, one battery was attached to a galvanized wire which was attached to a light bulb which was attached to another wire. The girls tried to move the wire along the maze without touching the wire to the maze. If they touched the maze wire, the light bulb would turn on because the circuit was complete. Each girl tried to not complete the circuit for the entire maze. After the groups had completed the maze once, the one battery was substituted for two batteries or three batteries in series. The girls immediately realized that more than one battery increased the light bulb's intensity.

Here is a simplistic pictorial representation of a wire maze circuit:




The goal of this lab was to teach the girls about the simplicity of an electrical circuit. They could clearly see the results of a light bulb, conductive wire, and a battery being in contact with each other. We talked to them about electrical circuits being one of the most common parts of daily life. They also explored the possibilities of pursuing a career in electrical engineering as they grew older.

Our first project was a success! We have attached some pictures to this post so you see how much fun the girls had.

Getting Started!

This blog is part of a project given to us by Dr. Jeff Bigelow in the Oklahoma Christian University Electronics 1 class. He challenged our class to show how our Christian spirits could be combined with our engineering knowledge. This challenge has become a full-fledged mentoring project for four girls in our class as well as other volunteers from the engineering department. Over the course of the 2010 Spring semester, we will go over to John Marshall High School several times to mentor young girls. Each time we visit, we will bring a fun engineering or science project to do with the girls. The goal is to show them that engineering and the sciences are fun, educational, and accessible to boys and girls alike. Hopefully, we can encourage them to go to college and pursue a career in engineering or the sciences.

We hope that you will keep up with our blog! Thanks for reading.