Young Engineers Put it All Together at Lincoln Trail

The subject is Engineering.

The professor writes a formula for Potential Energy on the board. PE=MGH.

“Who knows what G represents?” the professor asks.

“Gravity,” respond a few student voices.

“Very good. Who can tell me the value for Gravity?”

Students furiously look back through their notes, knowing they wrote that information down just last week.

“9.8,” one young man ventures.

“Correct,” the professor praises, writing the value in to the formula.

This is all in a day’s work in a typical engineering classroom at the University of Illinois campus. Except this isn’t an engineering classroom. It is a 5th grade classroom at Lincoln Trail Elementary School. And the students are not college students. They are 10 and 11 year olds in Sandy Prather’s class.

Learning this concept that is essential in creating so many simple machines we take for granted is part of an exciting program new to the Mahomet Seymour school district called Engineer in the Classroom. And one group of MS 5th graders may have an opportunity to take their created simple machine all the way to Engineering Open House on the University’s campus to compete against other projects designed and implemented by other students throughout Central Illinois.

The creations are part of the Engineer in the Classroom and a Rube Goldberg competition. Rube Goldberg was an engineer who became a cartoonist. He is best known for a series of popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways, according to Wikipedia.

Now, there are Rube Goldberg competitions held all over the country where students are challenged to design a complicated machine intended to complete a simple task. The device being built is simply referred to as a Rube in science circles. In this year’s competition, Mahomet Seymour 5th graders are functioning as an engineering team within their classroom.

This year’s Rube challenge:

To develop a machine that will unload an object from a vessel or container and return it to the same vessel or container.

The Engineer in the Classroom (EITC) program has been around Central Illinois since 1999, according to Tandra Wisnasky, Mahomet Seymour Parent Teacher Organization representative for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).The program started in Decatur. It has grown from a program in one town a program in four regions across Central Illinois: Peoria, Springfield, Decatur and Champaign-Urbana. Last year the program was in 7 or 8 classes in Champaign, according to Wisnasky. A chance meeting between Mahomet resident and EITC founder Monte Cherry and 5th grade teacher Prather at MS High School’s registration, brought the program to Lincoln Trail and doubled the number of classrooms participating.

Prather said 5th grade teachers were discussing lessons that aligned with the district’s Next Generation Science Standards. After hearing Cherry describe Engineer in the Classroom, she thought it “fit the bill,” she said.

The curriculum provided to the volunteer engineers states the ultimate goal of EITC is to provide students with a better understanding of engineering and what engineers do. Other goals including introducing students to simple engineering principals and how they affect our everyday lives. The last goal is to provide a fun and memorable experience through showcasing and completion the team’s mechanical device.

This last goal is coming true, according to Prather.

“My students love it,” said Prather. “They have great ideas about how to build it,” she added. Prather said she feels the project involves all students in her class.  Not only are students called upon to build the Rube, but they also must document progress in a journal, prepare an oral presentation on how the project was built and why it works, and write a research paper.

And despite the fact STEM is thought of as a traditionally male field, Prather said that is not the case in her class.

“The girls in my class are really stepping up and leading,” Prather added.

“Each team has the same goal,” said Cherry. “It changes each year,” adding “this year’s goal is to unload an object from a container and return it to the same container.” Within their classroom engineering teams, students are charged with conceiving the device, designing it, building it and perfecting it, all under the watchful mentorship of an adult acting as an engineering mentor or coach, said Cherry.

Some of the professionals who volunteered their time and talents are from the University of Illinois, like Professor Bill Spencer, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, in Prather’s class. Others work for the Army Corps of Engineers, or own their own consulting firm, said Wisnasky.

Wisnasky said she was in charge of recruiting professionals to act as mentors to the 5th graders. She did this by sending out an email to elementary and junior high parents in Mahomet Seymour, and by word of mouth. The result was 9 engineers, three of whom are women, to lead the 9 sections of 5th grade. The professionals have varied background, from chemical engineering to civil. One thing that is missing, Wisnasky said, is someone from the building/construction industry. She would like to see such a professional join the team of adult volunteers next year.

One of those recruited was Angie Wolters, associate director of the U of I’s Women in Engineering Program.

“The PTO’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) committee made a call for engineers to help with Engineer in the Classroom (EITC),” Wolters said. “I responded that I’d like to volunteer with Mr. Heinold’s class as my son, Blake, is one of his students.  I have a friend who has helped with the program in Champaign for many years.  EITC has a great reputation so I was excited to help with Lincoln Trail’s implementation of the program.”

Wolters said she enjoys many different roles while in Heinold’s class: engineering resource, teacher, facilitator and project manager, and those roles change from week to week.

“In January, I spent an hour and a half in the classroom each week with the students,” she said. “Each week we started my visit with a discussion of what it means to be an engineer, what processes and tools engineers use, and the simple machines used to build the Rube Goldberg machine.  After 15 minutes of discussion, we switched to work on the Rube Goldberg project: determining our Rube’s theme, designing components, and working on teams to complete all pieces of the design challenge.”

There is a deadline looming for professionals and their teams. The Rube Goldberg competition will be held this weekend in the Material Science and Engineering Building (MSEB) at the University of Illinois on the corner of Green and Mathews Streets in Room 101.

Now that the deadline is quickly approaching, Wolters said she is spending about 3 hours each week in the classroom.

Prather said Spencer is coming in some mornings at 7:30 a.m. to help students with their Rube.

No matter what the outcome at this weekend’s competition, everyone involved is having a meaningful experience.

“It has been a joy to see the students engage with the project and work together as a project team, all while expanding their interest in engineering,” said Wolters.

Fifth grader, Brooke Howard, agrees. “I like building things and using my imagination,” she said. She also enjoys the hands on aspect of working on the Rube, and the math involved. Most importantly, her favorite aspect of the project doesn’t involve math or science at all.

“The best part is being able to work as a class and cooperate. I’ve made friends because of this project that I never would have otherwise,” Howard said.

Classmate Seth Tolliver, said he also likes the hands on project. Tolliver said he has learned a lot through observing others to get more ideas.

Both Howard and Tolliver said they hope to become engineers someday.

THE EITC program has no cost to the school district, according to Wisnasky. Mentors donate their time. And, per the rules of a Rube competition, all items composing the contraption are “found objects” brought in by the students.

“The ‘stuff’ brought from the students homes must be ‘junk’ and disposable with little intrinsic value,” according to the rules.

This is why the walls of Prather’s classroom have been lined with medicine bottles, scraps of wood, Legos and PVC pipe since Winter break.

“We win the award for bringing in the most stuff,” Prather joked.

But all this “stuff” has been combined in to a functioning series of simple machines which does, in fact, unload an object from a container and return it to the same container,” after making a trip through some PVC pipe, around some Legos and past a pencil designed to slow down the object’s movement.

The culmination of all the “stuff,” theories, writing and presentation will come together Saturday, February 27 as MS’s fifth grade classrooms compete against other classrooms in the Champaign region.

According to Cherry, students will present their Rubes to a panel of three judges who are professors from the U of I. The presentation will cover the number of machines used, challenges to the Rube, and what makes their Rube unique.

Students will be called upon to run their machine two times, according to Cherry. In addition to how well the machine works, students will be judged on their presentation and their journal. The top five Rubes win prizes, such as materials for the school’s library. The top three point earners will be invited to compete at the U of I’s Engineering Open House. March 11-12 on the U of I Campus.

Organizers say they hope the program returns next year, but they are unsure what form it will take.

“It may only be in some fifth grade classrooms,” Prather said.

Wisnasky said she would like to develop a list of professionals who are willing to come in to the school to help students learn. She also said she realizes their employers are owed a big “thank you” for allowing their employees to donate their time.

Regardless of what form EITC takes in Mahomet Seymour schools next year, the collaboration and design portion of the Rube has been a success in everyone’s minds.

“I’ve been very impressed with the great design minds and problem solving skills of all the students with whom I’ve worked.  They have shown great enthusiasm for their project,” Wolters said.

“Mahomet did a great job pulling the engineers together,” Cherry said. He added “the teachers are key. I see the kids getting a lot out of it. They are engineers for eight weeks.” But what Cherry said he enjoys seeing the most if the “Eureka moment,” where it all comes together in the mind of the students.

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