PARSIPPANY — Students gathered at ISSO Shri Swaminarayan Hindu Mandir for the latest session of STEM Innovators, a free, hands-on engineering workshop series organized by Parsippany students Krishi Shah and Shreya Bollapally, on Saturday, October 10,
The session’s theme was aerospace engineering: the branch of engineering that deals with the design and development of aircraft and spacecraft. To start off the workshop, the kids were introduced to the basics of this topic, such as what aerospace engineers do, well-known aerospace companies, and the four fundamental forces of flight. From there, kids moved into a design phase, where they worked in teams to sketch out an idea to build a parachute before touching any materials.
With their designs in hand, the teams were given access to a table of different supplies, such as canopy materials and string options, and they set to work on building. The challenge for the kids was to build a parachute that would allow the payload in their cup to stay intact when dropped, but also achieve the slowest possible descent. Students worked through the full engineering process, designing first, then building, then testing and improving before the final competition drop.
The impact of this STEM workshop series goes beyond the workshops themselves. One parent, whose daughter attended an earlier session at the Parsippany Public Library, approached Shreya and Krishi afterward, saying: “Thank you for doing this. These events do a great job keeping the kids engaged. My daughter came home and could not stop talking about what she learned.”
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) certificates were awarded to participants for demonstrating outstanding effort and creativity throughout the session. The certificates were presented on behalf of the Chair of the IEEE North Jersey Section.
The STEM Innovators workshop series is recognized as an official outreach event series by the IEEE North Jersey Section. IEEE is one of the world’s largest professional organizations for engineers.
The aerospace session is one of several hands-on workshops STEM Innovators has hosted this year. Past sessions have included activities where students built prosthetic hands exploring biomedical engineering, constructed bridges while learning about civil engineering, and designed catapults for mechanical engineering. Each session is focused on a real engineering field and a hands-on challenge that students plan, build, and compete in during the workshop, while working with others.
The series is free and open to Parsippany-area children ages 7 through 13. For information on upcoming sessions, please contact [email protected] or [email protected].
