Marshall Lane CampbellCare Tech Challenge

The past few months, I've had the privilege of working with a few of the Marshall Lane CampbellCare 4th and 5th graders on the Tech Challenge. This year's challenge was Seismic Engineering in Action: Build an earthquake-safe structure! Kevin Theobald (site coordinator), Stanley He (leader), and I were also able to participate in the Tech Museum of Innovation's Tech Academy program. This provided us with ongoing support and PD to prepare our students to research earthquakes, materials, tools, the engineering design process, building designs, journaling, interviewing, innovation and teamwork.




Last weekend, our students joined over 2,000 students from all over the state to compete in the 28th Tech Challenge! This annual challenge is sponsored by the Tech Museum of Innovation and is free for after-school teams. It was inspiring to see so many students and families there in celebration of engineering and innovation! Our students appropriately named their building "The Leaning Eiffel Tower." The top floor even had a table for two and a zip tie art sculpture. Not only did it support a live load of 4.3 pounds, but it survived 3 series of 20 second earthquakes. Congratulations, Team Aftershocks on a job well done!





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