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CE Club January 2015 Update

MEP Engineer from Bury, Inc.

Priscilla Maya, a mechanical engineer at Bury Inc., gave the students a presentation on MEP systems within the built environment. As a mentor in the DFW Affiliate for the ACE Mentor Program, Priscilla was a natural fit for the CE Club as she is extremely passionate about her career as an engineer and about sharing it with high school students. She showed them illustrations of how heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems are set up in buildings just like the school they walk into every day. She even pointed out the different elements of the heating and air conditioning system in Mr. Carver's classroom such as the thermostat and ceiling diffusers. The students were also shown how to calculate the "load" in a building from the perspective of an MEP engineer. The building skin, interior partitions, occupants, and equipment such as computers and machinery all affect how an interior space must be conditioned and ventilated. The students were asked to consider the "load" in their classroom and how this could affect the design and performance of the school's mechanical systems.  The students were very impressed that some of the terminology and equations used in their class curriculum were used by Priscilla in her daily work as an MEP engineer. This direct connection between the concepts learned in class and the practical application by a "real-life" engineer are a great encouragement and motivation for the students in Mr. Carver's classes.

The students then got to have some fun by working in teams to design a balloon race car out of foam core board, cardboard, dowels, and plastic straws.  The main challenge for the students was how to maximize their thrust out of one or multiple straws to make their race car go the farthest.  Some race cars were faster than others, as you can see in this video.  Additional pictures from the presentation, race car construction, and race car testing can be found here.