After our expansion to Cary Middle School last semester, we thought we were done with Geared Up for the year. However, after Aleena (our Founder/Executive Director) came in contact with her old AP Biology teacher at MacArthur High School and learned about the new STEAM Club, we had to expand there!
So far, we’ve had 2 sessions at MacArthur, and we plan on continuing next semester. So far, we have covered general engineering, civil engineering, and electrical engineering.
For our first session, we had a guest speaker, Madeline Adler, from the Lyle School of Engineering. She talked about engineering, SMU, the college process, and why engineering is awesome!
After that, we had our first design challenge: We Will Rebuild. The students were tasked to build the strongest gummy bear bridges in a short amount of time with limited materials. They got to explore concepts like force, stress, and truss structures as they acted as civil engineers!
At MacArthur, we decided to add an extra reflection portion to our sessions. We asked our students what went well and what didn’t and what they learned.
This helped give the students an opportunity to reflect on what they learned and ask questions about engineering and the college process. They learned a lot, and they had a lot of fun throughout the entire session!
Our next session at MacArthur High School focused on electrical engineering. For this session, we didn’t have a guest speaker, but Aleena shared her (not so) vast knowledge of what electrical engineers do!
After learning what electrical engineers do, the students completed their second design challenge: Ornament Circuits. They built Christmas ornaments and added circuits to them!
The students have had a great time with Geared Up so far, and it’s been really cool for Aleena to go back to her old high school and inspire students who are where she was 4 years ago! We can’t wait to go back to MacArthur next semester!