Twin Valley High School Wins Best Overall in PA PLTW Design Challenge |
 |
 |
Hempfield High School Wins Best Design in PA PLTW Design Challenge |
| Perkiomen Valley High School Wins Best Teamwork in PA PLTW Design Challenge |  |
By Tom Weiss - PA Affiliate Director of PLTW, Penn State Berks
It was a dreary day in Reading, PA as the 2009 Pennsylvania Project Lead The Way (PLTW) Design Challenge kicked off. Inside, it was sunny or, that's what student teams from Pennsylvania PLTW high schools were challenged with. Their goal - design a solar-powered vehicle in a specific period of time given identical bags of materials. The materials included a small solar panel and motor, wheels and axles, and an array of balsa wood, Styrofoam and other office type supplies. Not only did the teams have to design the vehicle, but they all had to make timed team presentations detailing how they arrived at their design. The results were judged by a group of engineers from Carpenter Technology, a leading manufacturer and distributor of specialty alloys located in Reading, PA.
Fourteen Project Lead The Way high schools from as far as Pittsburgh made the trip to the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading, PA on February 18, 2009. Competitors of the five-member co-ed teams are from Project Lead The Way high schools and are typically in 9th and 10th grade. They used skills learned in the first two PLTW Foundation Courses, Introduction To Engineering Design and Principles of Engineering to complete their task. Students presented sketches of several design ideas and a final detailed sketch of their solution. After showing the judges their final design, the teams demonstrated their solar vehicles on the 24 foot test track. If their design did not perform as intended, they also provided a redesign statement indicating what they might do differently given the time. Participating PLTW high schools were:
Brandywine Heights Area High School, Topton, PA |
McCaskey East Senior High School, Lancaster, PA |
Hempfield Senior High School, Landisville, PA |
MaST Community Charter School, Philadelphia, PA |
Wilson High School, West Lawn, PA |
Perkiomen Valley High School, Collegeville, PA |
Montour High School, Pittsburgh, PA |
Parkland High School, Allentown, PA |
York Suburban High School, York, PA |
North Penn High School, Lansdale, PA |
Twin Valley High School, Elverson, PA |
Reading High School, Reading, PA |
Radnor High School, Radnor, PA |
James Buchanan High School, Mercersburg, PA |
Four awards were presented. The winners and the awards are
Best Overall Solution – Twin Valley High School , Elverson , PA
Best Design – Hempfield High School , Landisville , PA
Best Presentation – Parkland High School , Allentown , PA
Best Teamwork – Perkiomen Valley High School , Collegeville , PA
Challenge Downloads:
Want To See Our Design Challenge? Download here.
Flash Presentation Of Our Contest Pictures during the day
Video of the Design Challenge - Courtesy of Hempfield High School
Links to other media stories about the Design Challenge:
For more information on the competition or, if you are a company and would like to provide assistance for PLTW in Pennsylvania, please contact Tom Weiss..
About Project Lead The Way
Project Lead The Way is a national non-profit organization that works in partnership with public middle and high schools to implement a curriculum that emphasizes hands-on experiences in engineering, design, and technology. PTLW aims to attract an increasingly more diverse group of students to become the next generation of scientists, technology experts, engineers and mathematicians and help America compete favorably in the global economy. PLTW began in 1998 in 12 high schools in upstate New York as a program designed to address the shortage of engineering students at the college level. It has grown to a network of over 3,000 public middle and high schools in 50 states and the District of Columbia enrolling 250,000 students. More than 500,000 students across the country have taken at least one PLTW course. PTLW’s approach, called activities-based learning, project-based learning, and problem-based learning or APPB-learning, centers on hands-on projects that have real world application to get students excited about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The curriculum, which makes mathematics and science relevant, strives to help students understand how the skills they are learning in the classroom can be applied in everyday life.
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