On Saturday the 10th, we went to our first Saturday Academy. We were first assigned into our groups, and went to our first workshop.
The first workshop was called Take a Shot. The objective was to build a slingshot that can shoot a ping pong ball 15 feet away. We picked teams of 2 and started building. We had a variety of materials but were only allowed to choose 6 out of 8 materials. Some of the materials we were able to use were popsicle sticks, a folder, paper, rubber bands, and balsa wood. The construction of the Take a Shot activity was thoroughly enjoyable!
Some of the other workshops were called Marble Madness and Trampoline Challenge. For the Marble Madness, we had to build a roller coaster which had to include one hill, one tunnel, and four changes of direction. The materials were 3 plates, 10 pieces of printer paper, 2 cardboard paper rolls with no toilet paper, and 5 feet of tape. The whole ride had to be 50 to 75 seconds long. They got a marble and started at the entrance and the marble went through the roller coaster. The goal of the project was to create a marble roller coaster that lasted 50-75 seconds. For the Trampoline Challenge, the objective was to create a trampoline that will be able to launch a small sack over a small fence. Materials needed for this are a plastic bowl, toothpicks, rubber bands, scissors, hole punchers, and rocks to weigh the trampoline down. Overall, the Trampoline Challenge was a nice activity, as it was quite a hard challenge too!
We also saw a presentation about Bulldog Racing. These students built a car for a competition. They showed us all the steps to building the car and how they improved it.
We went to a presentation called LCOE presentation. In this presentation we learned all the majors that CSU, Fresno offered. We learned that there were a variety of majors which also means that there were many different engineers. Around 6 students were on a stage talking about the majors they qualified in and what their future plans were. It was very inspirational, and it gave us a lot of information about the course of engineering.
Our last presentation was called the ZEM presentation. A group of people traveled all the way to Fresno from Europe to present their recycled waste car they built. The car was a little small but was very good for being built out of recycled waste. The seats were made out of pineapple leaves! They showed us how the car didn’t run on gas and it was not expensive as the Tesla brands. They are working on safety so they can release the car to the public. They try to build a new car every year to try different models. We finished listening to their wonderful presentation and headed home.
Thank you for reading!
Sincerely,
The MESA Leadership Team.