Over 60 smiling faces got a taste of what it’s like to be an engineer on Monday when the Student Advisory Committee of the School of Engineering hosted a Girl Scout/Boy Scout Day for local scouts.
Ten scout troops from the Capital Region participated in activities in CAD, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, and physics.
The event was held this year to coincide with National Engineering Week, which runs from February 18-24.
Barbara Ruel, manager of marketing and student services for engineering, was very happy with the turnout. She said the activities allowed the scouts to do "some of the modeling and designs that engineers do. It gave them a taste of what it is to be an engineer."
Scouts used polymers to make Gak, experimented with water filtration, participated in tensile strength tests, and watched a CAD demonstration, among other activites.
In the physics demonstration, the scouts froze flowers using liquid nitrogen and then broke them on the nearby furniture. "And of course making a mess with kids is a real treat for them," Ruel said.
The activities excited the scouts. According to Ruel, the activities were timed so that they offered enough to draw the scouts’ interest, but not too long to be boring. "It was just the right amount of time spent on each thing," she said.
Over 100 scouts were expected to attend, but many were away on vacations since this week also coincides with the midwinter breaks of many of the local schools.
Ruel said she expects Girl Scout/Boy Scout Day to become an annual event, and expects the turnout to be higher next year. She said the plan is to hold it during National Engineering Week again, and she hopes the timing will work out better.
