The S&T design teams have long celebrated Engineers Week activities on the last weekend of February at the St Louis Science Center. The Society of Professional Engineers hosts many engineering-related displays at the popular venue this time each year, but this year was exceptional. The wildly popular BodyWorks 3 exhibit of actual preserved human bodies has been drawing huge crowds. The overlap of the traveling show means that larger-than-ever crowds have spilled out into S&T's display areas covering most of the facility's ground floor and our students made the most of the opportunity to showcase their incredible projects.
*Disclaimer: Some might argue that the huge crowds actually came to see our projects and then overflowed into the BodyWorks event, but we'll let others decide that.*
The SDELC teams have been joined by several other campus design groups. The Chem-E (chemically-controlled) car and Miners In Space (zero-gravity welding) were back again this year, and they were joined by Keramos, the student society of ceramic engineers, who have an amazing kid-friendly display of fiber optic-like melted candy and marshmallows frozen in liquid nitrogen. What better way to get kids involved in science than eating their projects?
S&T's student chapter of the American Nuclear Society set up an interactive (!) portable nuclear reactor just for little tykes. Now before you wonder what they were thinking, this "reactor" consists of more than 150 mousetraps and ping-pong balls, and which beautifully illustrates how a chain reaction works as the plastic "neutrons" fly in all directions with the attendant cacophany of clacking balls and snapping mousetraps. The kids LOVED it, especially little boys.
These events give our incredible students a chance to promote the fun and excitement of a technological education and career, and is our second recent opportunity to promote Missouri S&T's new name in the St Louis area.
Stay tuned, because this time next week we'll be reporting from the FIRST Robotics regional competition at the Famiy Arena in nearby St Charles, MO, where we'll be trying to recruit tech-savvy, team-oriented students to Rolla. Look for many of them to take leading roles in continuing S&T's success in intercollegiate design competitions.
