WD scientists help students win state engineering challenge

Date: 16-Jun-10
News Release Number: ECL201006161

Burroughs High School students, from left, Travis Cole, Alan Bengston and Keith DeRuiter show off their pingpong ball dispenser that took them to the state finals of a recent engineering design challenge. NAWCWD engineers volunteered their time to help with the challenge. Photo by Trish Gresham

NAWCWD engineers, from left, Stephen Farnsworth, Jonathan Huber, Rodney Heil, Justin Shatto and Travis Canfield are volunteers who helped Burroughs High School students in a recent Project Lead the Way engineering design challenge. Photo by Renee Hatcher

Five NAWCWD scientists and engineers volunteered their time and expertise to help Burroughs High School students win the state finals of a recent engineering design challenge through Project Lead the Way.

The BHS team, called China Lake 1, consisted of three seniors – Alan Bengston, Keith DeRuiter and Travis Cole.

BHS engineering teacher Damien Jacotin encouraged the students to enter the challenge and supported them throughout the competition. The NAWCWD employees who also helped the students were Rodney Heil, Justin Shatto, Stephen Farnsworth, Jonathan Huber and Travis Canfield. The base employees spent time in the classroom at least once or twice a week to provide feedback and answer design questions.

"It was very fun to work with the students," Heil said. "They are very bright."

Bengston, whose father Eric works at the U.S. Naval Museum of Armament and Technology, will be attending Cerro Coso Community College in the fall pursuing an electrical or computer engineering degree. DeRuiter, whose father Paul works in the Signals Warfare Branch of the Avionics Department, will begin work on a computer engineering/science degree at the University of Southern California in the fall. Cole, whose father Doug works in the Surface and Technology Division of the Weapons and Energetics Department, will head to Northern Arizona University in the fall to pursue a mechanical engineering degree.

China Lake 1 began the event by winning a preliminary competition at Cal Poly Pomona on May 1, which sent them to the state finals at San Diego State on May 8.

For the first challenge, the team had one month to make a dispenser that could place pingpong balls into six cups in the shape of a pyramid. The team had to program the robot to pick up the balls and place them into the appropriate cups based on directions from the judges.

"The team had a very clever design for the first competition," Heil said. "It was a hybrid of several ideas. They built something I never would have imagined. It was very cool."

The team spent about 20 hours working on the project during lunches and after school.

"Rodney was a big help to the team," DeRuiter said. "He worked with us on programming the pingpong ball dispenser and spent extra time with us while we were trouble shooting some of the challenges we had with our design concept."

The finals pitted all the regional winners against each other for a more difficult challenge. The teams received their directions on the day of the event and had just six hours to complete the project. The project was to design an accelerometer that could be taken to the pre-manufacturing stage.

"It was difficult at times but we all worked together on the design and divided up the work based on our different skills and strengths," Bengston said.

Bengston took on a lot of the math problems, DeRuiter created the computer model and Cole did all of the sketches and the Power Point presentation that the team delivered to the judges.

Members of China Lake 1 noted how much they relied on their knowledge of calculus and physics throughout the entire competition.

"I felt like we had the edge over the other teams," Cole said. "Our knowledge of physics and calculus was obvious when we presented our design concept to the judges and discussed the steps we took to get the results."

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