STUDENTS TO COMPETE IN DESIGN CONTESTS AT ENGINEERING OPEN HOUSE
Middle and high school students will have opportunities to fly foam gliders and build battery-powered boats during an engineering open house sponsored by Old Dominion University's College of Engineering and Technology, Feb. 18-19.
The event, in celebration of National Engineers Week, will begin at 9 a.m. Friday, Feb. 18, and run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb.19, in Kaufman Hall. It is free and open to the public.
Students from more than 150 middle and high schools in Hampton Roads have been invited to the open house to meet with engineering faculty and students, tour the college's teaching and research facilities, and talk with industry representatives about careers.
Several laboratories will be open with various demonstrations, including a low-speed wind tunnel to show how airplane models are tested; a demonstration to show how buildings are tested to withstand earthquakes; a geographic information systems demonstration to show 3-D terrain analysis; a speech communication demonstration to show how speech synthesis is helping the hearing disabled; and a robotics demonstration to show how robots are used to perform complicated manufacturing tasks.
Students can participate in 10 contests, including a Mousetrap Car Design, in which a handmade car is powered by a mousetrap, and an Electric Boat contest, in which students construct a model air boat using balsam wood and a battery. Students can also make model airplanes from foam meat trays in the Foam Glider contest.
Other contests include the Egg Drop, in which an uncooked egg must survive a 25-foot free fall; Baby Baja Rally, in which students build a miniature all-terrain vehicle capable of traversing sand dunes, water and logs using two batteries and a motor for power; Model Bridge Span contest, in which students construct foot-long bridges from balsa wood to see which has the highest load-carrying capacity; and the CO2 Car Race, in which students construct a car's body from a single piece of wood.
Old Dominion engineering students will judge the contests. Trophies and certificates will be awarded. For more information, call 683-3789.