SeminolE SeCME
HAWK TALK
SPrING 2011
Hawk Talk Science, Engineering, Communication and Math
SILVer rED Seminole Ridge Hawks snatch second place during district engineering Olympiad Seminole Ridge SECME won four trophies at the 2011 SECME regional Olympiad, including second place overall for the county! Teams from twenty high schools in Palm Beach County participated in the engineering contests at Santaluces High School in Lantana on Saturday, February 26, 2011. Students squared off in racing mousetrap powered model cars, launching model rockets, building and break balsa wood bridges; in general knowledge games during the "Brain Bowl"; and in literary and artistic competitions with essays, banners, and posters. The competition of cogitators was fierce, but the Hawks, those gladiators of grey matter, won in 3rd in the poster, 2nd in the water bottle rocket, and 1st in the banner. This put overall Olympiad performance 2nd in the entire district! Principal Lynne McGee, and SECME school coordinators Erich Landstrom and Ed Batchelor congratulate them on their achievements! Team captain Cindy Dosch (seen below holding trophy) said “Proud of you guys! We did awesome against all odds.”
POSTER: Students create posters based on the Olympiad's theme “SECME: STEMulating Minds” • Third Place: Seminole Ridge BANNER: Students create banners based on the Olympiad's theme. Banners must contain the school mascot and SECME logo. • First Place: Seminole Ridge WATER ROCKET: Students build a model rocket around a standard 2 liter soda bottle. All teams must have: rocket (constructed and launch-ready); design drawing blueprint of rocket; technical report on rocket; and mission patch design. At the Olympiad, rockets will be "fueled" with 355 milliliters of water and 60 PSI of air pressure. The rocket with the greatest combined "hang time" airborne and score will be declared the winner • Second Place: Seminole Ridge OVERALL HIGH SCHOOL PALM BEACH COUNTY CHAMPION: • Second Place: Seminole Ridge High • First Place: Suncoast High
Vol. 3 Issue 4
Inside this issue: SECME Spotlight: senior Edwin Keo
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DiBiFiLiTi at SFSM April 16th
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Figure This! Flying 2 a Paper Airplane EWeek at FAU
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Hawks buzz the 3 Nat’l Science Bowl XKCD.COMics
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“A scientist discovers that which exists. An engineer creates that which never was.” - Theodore von Karman (18811963), founder of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Secme spotlight: eDwin Keo “If possible, I want to be a chemical engineer so that I can impact society in a positively significant way. I want to find a better solution for our world’s problems. For example, when BP (formerly the British Petroleum company; the third largest global energy and fourth largest company in the world measured by revenues) had faced the crisis of a global oil spill, they took action towards trying to stop the oil spill, but failed miserably for weeks. Many people, including me, were quite skeptical that it took BP to fix an oil leak larger than Puerto Rico by taking a long amount of time to construct a plug that was similar to what people used to stop a drain to fill up a bath tub. If I was a chemical engineer, I would look for some possible solution with the help of environmental engineers, civil engineers, and a physics professional, to either design the plug in the first week or perhaps find a more viable and sensible solution towards fixing the ecosystem. In SECME, students always stum-
ble upon problems with their models or devices, and always need to find a way to fix the problem so that it doesn’t happen again. We need these kind of people with the potential to solve problems that corporations cannot simply solve at all, and I firmly believe that a good way to find these type of people would be to look at SECME participants and see the most dedicated student there is.” Below: SRHS senior Edwin Keo
Drop It, Build It, Fly It, Launch It, Thrill It— Saturday, April 16 Di-Bi-Fi-Li-Ti is a design competition for cash prizes challenges kids to build an unbreakable balsawood bridge, create the perfect carton to protect a raw egg from a 3-story drop, fold and fly the farthest-flung paper airplane, blast off the best water bottle rocket for max time airborne, and create a thrill-packed roller coaster. The Florida Engineering Society tests the skills of junior high and high school students at the South Florida Science Museum in West Palm Beach on Saturday, April 16, 2011 from 9 AM to 5 PM. Students are responsible for their own transportation to and from the event. More information is available online at http://www.sfsm.org
Figure This! How far can you fly a paper airplane?
Hint: How can you compare the two glide ratios? Getting Started: How far does each glider go by the time it has dropped 1 foot? Draw a picture of the path of each glider. Hawk Talk Vol. 3 Issue 4
Solution: Glider B. One way to analyze this situation is to determine how far each glider has gone horizontally when both have dropped 1 foot. To do this, rewrite each glide ratio as its equivalent fraction with a numerator of 1. A: 3/10 = 0.3 = (0.3 ÷ 0.3)/(1 ÷ 0.3) = ~ 1/3.33; versus B: 2/7 = (2 ÷ 2)/(7 ÷ 2) = 1/3.5 After a 1-foot vertical drop, glider A traveled about 3.3 feet, while B traveled 3.5 feet. Therefore, glider B will fly farther. Did you know that? The glide ratio can be determined by computing the tangent of the angle defined by the glider’s path and the horizontal. Can a glider have a glide ratio of 0?
Figure This! The “Fly It” competition at the South Florida Science Museum on April 30th challenges students to pitch a paper airplane the furthest. If the plane has a glide ratio of 1/10, it goes down 1 foot for every 10 feet it travels horizontally. Suppose two gliders start at the same height, one with a glide ratio of 3/10 and one with a glide ratio of 2/7. If they glide until they hit the ground, which one, A or B, will have glided the farther horizontal distance?
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EWeek at FAU: Owls and Hawks are Engineering Innovation Seminole SECME attended Florida Atlantic University’s Engineering Week pre-college presentation Feb 22nd to hear Dean Karl K. Stevens of FAU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, and Larry Port. Mr. Port is the co-founder & chief software architect of Rocket Matter, which provides online legal practice management software. During lunch, we competed in the banner, “Pop Fly launcher” and “Touchdown lander” design challenges.
The Hawks won 1st place for their banner’s artwork, 3rd place for their foot-powered mini-catapult launcher which propelled 2 Ping-Pong balls across the indoor arena, and 1st place for their 9 oz. lander which cushioned their PingPong ball payload during a five foot freefall. We also showcased our VEX robot playing ‘Round Up’ during a robotic demonstration, and explored the Science Explorium at Sugar Sand Park in Boca Raton.
Hawks hold up in NSB qualifiers lose playoffs to Palmetto Seminole Ridge SECME students were fast with physical science facts, math formulas, and most importantly their fingers at Miami’s Florida International University on Saturday, February 19, 2011 Science Bowl is an academic competition that offers a chance for teams of high school students from across the state to match (clockwise from center) their mental abilities in STEM (science, technology, engineerThe Ridge's red team ing and mathematics) subjects. consisting of captain Teams compete in this fast-paced Robert Botkin, Joe Pavicic, Yiro Shimabu- "jeopardy" style, head-to-head competition, which includes prekuro, Caitlin Miller, liminary and double-elimination and Duncan Miller. matches. Students answer either multiple-choice or short-answer questions relating to science and math facts or concepts. Questions are so challenging even educated scientists have trouble answering before the buzzer. Here is a sample: For a circuit with a current of 3 amperes, operating for 5 minutes, how much charge, in coulombs, has gone by any point in the circuit? ANSWER: 900 C (Solution: dQ = I dT Since coulombs is in seconds, convert 5 minutes into 300 seconds and multiply by 3 C/s = 900 C) Hawk Talk Vol. 3 Issue 4
(l to r, front row) The Seminole SECME silver team consisting of captain Edwin Keo, CJ Galko, John Gonzalez, Justin Bishop, (next row) Arnold Banner. Seminole Ridge sent 2 of the 25 teams from south Florida that competed in 6 divisions during the round robin regional qualifiers. This year, the silver Hawks correctly answered rapid-fire questions in several disciplines-physics, math, astronomy, biology, chemistry, energy and earth sciences-- to advance to the double elimination bracket with three wins and two losses during the round robin. In playoffs they first fell to Miami Palmetto Senior High School (Miami, FL), 147-46, then were overcome by challenger Cypress Bay High School (Weston, FL) by a score of 156-38. Captain Edwin Keo said, "We did pretty well in the competition. We managed to get into the double elimination, and our 8th match/round was our absolute loss!" He thinks his team did a good job and critiqued, "We all had our share of Fail moments." CJ Galko agreed, "We did a lot better than I thought we would and it was a lot of fun." To coach Erich Landstrom, that excitement and enthusiasm about education is reward enough. Page 3
The SECME MISSION
SECME (Science, Engineering, Communication and Mathematics Excellence) is a national supplemental program that promotes academic achievement for historically underrepresented students in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math. But it is open to any and all students who want to participate in hands-on activities and project based learning. SECME, Inc. is a nation-wide pre-college alliance of 50 school districts in 15 states, D.C. and the Grand Bahamas; 37 engineering universities (such as FAU, Georgia Tech, Howard University and the University of Houston); and 70 corporate/government investors (such as Exxon Mobile, which awarded a $300,000 grant to support the SECME Summer Institute for teacher training, and ExxonMobil SECME Scholars — a 2008 survey of students seniors showed that ninety six (96%) percent of SECME high school seniors enrolled in college!) For more information, please visit http://www.secme.org.
SECME School Coordinator Seminole Ridge Community High School 4601 Seminole Pratt Whitney Road Loxahatchee, FL 33470 Phone # 561.422.2600
Website http://seminolesecme.blogspot.com
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