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Parkland High
School Sweeps 3 of 4 Awards in PA PLTW Design Contest |

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Twin Valley High
School Scores Best Overall Solution |
By Tom Weiss -
Affiliate Director PLTW, Penn State Berks
"I'm learning this stuff, but
how do I use it?" Have you ever heard this from any of your
technology education students? Students from eight Pennsylvania Project
Lead The Way (PLTW) high schools gathered at Penn State Berks in
Reading, PA to get a chance to "use this stuff". The first
Pennsylvania PLTW Design Contest on February 20, 2008 celebrated
Engineer's Week. Participating high schools were:
| Norristown
High School, Norristown, PA |
| North
Penn High School, Lansdale, PA |
| Parkland
High School, Allentown, PA |
| Radnor
High School, Radnor, PA |
| Reading
High School, Reading, PA |
| Twin
Valley High School, Elverson, PA |
| Wilson
High School, West Lawn, PA |
| York
Suburban High School, York, PA |
Teams of five PLTW students arrived
at Penn State Berks with no idea what they were going to design, build,
and demonstrate to an outside panel of judges. At 9:00 am, all teams
received a box of identical construction materials and a Design
Challenge Brief. Construction materials consisted of items such as
pulleys, rubber bands, wooden dowels, paper clips, glue sticks, and
other similar items. All teams had three hours to complete the project
and prepare a short presentation and demonstration. Students would need
to use skills learned in the first two PLTW Foundation Courses,
Introduction To Engineering Design and Principles of Engineering, to
complete their task.
The Design Challenge was to model
and construct a "pumpkin picker"; a machine that would help
pick pumpkins from a field and load them into a "truck". For
this contest, the pumpkins were golf balls, the field was a large
plywood sheet, and the truck was a plastic container. Only one student
could demonstrate the picker. Students presented sketches of several
design ideas and a final detailed sketch of their solution. If their
design did not perform as intended, students also provided a redesign
statement indicating what they might do differently given the time. A
successful design had to load at least three pumpkins into the truck
without a failure.
Four categories of awards were
available. Attending PLTW teachers judged the Best Teamwork category.
Penn State Berks Engineering Technology seniors selected the team that
made the Best Presentation. Engineers from Carpenter Technology, a
leading manufacturer and distributor of specialty alloys in Reading, PA,
selected the Best Design and Best Overall Solution.
Award Winners:
Parkland High School, Allentown,
PA
Best Teamwork
Best Presentation
Best Design
Twin Valley High School, Elverson,
PA
Best Overall Solution
About Project Lead The Way
PLTW has developed a four-year
sequence of courses called Pathway To Engineering. When combined with
college preparatory mathematics and science courses in high school,
Pathway introduces students to the scope, rigor and discipline of
engineering and engineering technology prior to entering college.
Introduction at this level will attract more students to engineering and
engineering technology, and will allow students, while still in high
school, to determine if engineering is the career they desire. Students
participating in PLTW courses are better prepared for college
engineering programs and more likely to be successful, reducing the
attrition rate in these college programs, which currently exceeds 50%
nationally.
In addition, PLTW has developed an
exciting Middle School Technology Curriculum. Gateway To Technology,
designed for grades 6 - 8, shows students how technology and engineering
solves everyday problems.
For more information about Project
Lead The Way in Pennsylvania, please contact:
Tom Weiss, Affiliate Director -
Penn State Berks Telephone: 610-396-6313. Email: Contact Me
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