Membership

Membership

Club membership is open to any West Branch student in grades 9-12.

• Do you enjoy learning about how things work?
• Do you like to use your knowledge of Science and Math to solve challenging problems?
• Do you like to design and build useful objects that help people?
• After you've built something and used it for a while, do you find yourself thinking of ways to make it work better?
• Do you like working as part of a team?

If so, then the Engineering Club is a way to connect with people who share your interests and who will truly appreciate your talents and abilities.

It's Not Just a Guy Thing

Perhaps you've heard that the field of engineering is dominated by men. While that may have been true in the past, the situation is changing. The number of women entering engineering has nearly doubled in the last decade. About 39% of all biomedical engineering degrees and 36% of all chemical engineering degrees are now being earned by women. Click here for the full story.

It's Not Just for Seniors

Perhaps you haven't yet taken Physics or Trigonometry. That's OK. You don't need an engineering degree to join this club. If you're in ninth grade or above, we've got exciting activities that you will not want to miss. And who knows? Maybe you'll be the person who thinks of the great idea that helps West Branch to win an engineering contest!

Field Trips

We would like to arrange one or two field trips per year. Here are a few possibilities:

• Hybrid Electric Vehicle Lab at Penn State
• Spirit Rocket Project at Penn State
• Engineering Project Showcase at Penn State
• Penn State Nuclear Reactor
• Wind Power Generation Facility at new DEP Office near Philipsburg

Contests

Many high school teams participate in annual contests that challenge students to use their knowledge of science and math to design and fabricate a working device. If there is sufficient interest among West Branch students, the Engineering Club might be able to participate in one such contest per year. Any seniors participating in such a contest could probably use the experience as the basis for their senior projects.

Team America Rocketry Challenge

In 2005, nearly 40 teams from Pennsylvania schools participated in the annual Team America Rocketry Challenge in The Plains, Virginia. The goal is to design and build a rocket that will carry a raw egg to an altitude of 800 feet and then safely return it to Earth.

Penn State Abington Fire-Fighting Robot Contest

This annual contest takes place at the Penn State Abington campus (near Philadelphia). Most teams build robots using the LEGO Mindstorms robotics invention system. The goal is to design and build a robot that can locate and extinguish a randomly placed candle in a four-room house measuring 8 ft by 8 ft. in the shortest time possible.

National Robotics Challenge

This contest is held annually in Marion, Ohio. It is actually several contests in one. The Journey Robot Contest challenges the student teams to design construct, and operate a battery powered Journey Robot that will navigate through and over a series of obstacles, through a maze and perform a task. The SUMO Robot Contest requires a student team to build a self-propelled, remote controlled or sensing robot, designed to force another SUMO Robot outside a sixteen (16) foot diameter circle. In the Top of the Hill contest, the participants shall build a remote controlled device able to operate within a 24-foot long and 10-foot wide Moonscape interspersed with obstacles. The device is to travel the Moonscape and pick up four ping-pong balls from four holding device locations and place them into a receiving jig.

Boston University Design Challenge

The Design Competition involves teams of two students, both of whom must be high school freshmen, sophomores, or juniors at the time of the competition. Each team will design and build a vehicle that will, under its own power, climb a sloped ramp, knock over a flag at the top of the ramp, and sustain its position against an opposing vehicle. Both members of the first-place team will be awarded tuition scholarships to Boston University of $5,000 per year for four years. Both members of the second-place team will be awarded tuition scholarships to Boston University of $2,500 per year for four years. Both members of the third-place team will receive a $100 gift certificate redeemable at Barnes and Noble at Boston University upon matriculation at Boston University . All finalists will receive a trophy recognizing their performance.

IMSTEA Supermileage Contest

Several organizations sponsor fuel economy contests. High school students design and build extremely lightweight gasoline powered vehicles. Pictured below is the Winamac High School Team which achieved 900 MPG in the 2005 IMSTEA Supermileage Challenge held at the Indianapolis Speedway. This competition is open to teams from outside of Indiana.