Author: Cora Perritt with a foreword by her mentor, Erica DeMichele
On March 14th, 2022, Cora Perritt, a 5th Grader at Delran Intermediate School, just had an opportunity that only 150 other students in New Jersey had a chance to do... design a wind powered vehicle, present her findings to a panel of expert judges, be judged on the use of all the engineer design process and constraints then be assessed on that learning. Her teammates from 5th Grade were: Connor Shears, Jace Mitana, Andrew Sargent, Brayden LaCour, Jordan Huynh
In this blog, Cora summarizes what the NJIT eSTEM Competition was all about. Read on to see what Cora thought of the experience:
The NJIT eSTEM competition was all about finding the solution to the problem that is our power source. We made a vehicle that was completely wind-powered, a solution to that problem.
The most fun thing was probably creating our first prototype. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the fieldtrip to Delran Fabrication lab, but my teammates did an amazing job of turning Betsy Bear into a real vessel.
Here are some of the things they did in the Fab Lab: vinyl cutting, laser cutting, using a scroll saw, using TinkerCad to 3D print a part of our vessel, Betsy Bear.
What was the most challenging thing you've done in the competition process?
The most challenging part of the competition process was definitely the presentation. It was difficult to remember lines and where I started, but we did just fine.
Competing against the other 29 schools, I'm still proud of our team's accomplishments. In the competition, we did not win any awards, but we still did really well! I am very proud of the fact that I got to contribute and work as a team with 5 other awesome engineers.
Thank you so much to the NJIT organizers for this chance and the experience of the eSTEM competition!
Come and see the NJIT eSTEM Delran Engineer Bears show off Betsy Bear at the Delran STEM Fair on Monday, May 16th from 5:30-7:00pm.