Project Lead The Way

2009 Pennsylvania PLTW Design Challenge

Revised 2/19/2009

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:

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 

Links to other media stories about the Design Challenge:

Lancaster Online

The Reading Eagle

Tri-County Record

WFMZ - TV - Channel 69 

The 2008 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 who participate in PLTW are five times more likely to graduate college as science, technology, and engineering and math majors as students who do not.

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 

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