Local Engineers Week results in winning combinations for students

  • Published
  • By Raquel March
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  Professional engineering society engineers at Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC) were involved in hosting 158 local students in three different engineering activities during Engineers Week, Feb. 16-22. The activities provided opportunities for student competition and engineering mentoring among seven counties.

MathCounts®

The MathCounts competition involved 62 mathletes competing on teams and utilizing their skills to answer math problems. Teams included Harris Middle School, Shelbyville; Highland Rim Elementary School, Fayetteville; East Middle School, Tullahoma; North Middle School, Winchester; West Middle School, Tullahoma; The Webb School, Bell Buckle; and Moore County Middle School, Lynchburg.

West Middle School earned first place honors; East Middle School received second place and Harris Middle School received third place.

Individual awards went to Zane Sharp from East Middle School, first place; Trey Hippe from Harris Middle School, second place; and Cameron Haley from West Middle School, third place.

Team Tullahoma will compete at the Tennessee MathCounts Competition March 22 at the Tennessee Engineering Center in Nashville. The team consists of students from the winning team and the four top scoring individuals who were not part of the winning team. Team members are Sam Dougherty, Cameron Haley, Brandon Perry, Caleb Purdue and James Wagnon of West Middle School; James Garret and Trey Hippe of Harris Middle School; and Zane Sharp of East Middle School. The team coach is Chris King.
Student Design Competition

The Student Design Competition presented some obstacles to challenge students in designing a vehicle that would deliver a payload from a starting point to a target. Twenty-six teams comprised of two students from seven high schools were provided materials to design, build and compete their vehicle. Each school had three to four teams participating in the competition. Teams gave short presentations about the design choice challenges they faced and the trades they made in building their vehicle.

The participating schools were The Webb School, Cascade High School, Tullahoma High School, Coffee County Central High School, Huntland High School, Moore County High School and Shelbyville Central High School.

Jim Sherwood and Ulysses Yu, from The Webb School, won first place. Josh Baker and Benjamin Cantrell, from Cascade High School, were in second place, and Grant Rigney and Becca White, from Tullahoma High School, placed third.

Engineer for a Day

During Engineer for a Day, 34 high school juniors and seniors were paired with AEDC engineers and engineers from the local community in an engineering discipline of the students' choice. The students toured AEDC during the morning of Feb. 19 and followed an engineering mentor during the afternoon on the same day to understand the different engineering disciplines.

Twenty-one AEDC engineers and two Tullahoma Utility Board engineers volunteered to be mentors.

The Engineers Week activities are sponsored by the Tullahoma Chapter of the Tennessee Society of Professional Engineers, the Highland Rim Chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Tennessee section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals, the Project Management Institute, and the Arnold Association of Professional Societies.