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Twenty nine Juniors from area high schools participated in the Academy which ran from Sunday, July 8 to
Friday, July 13. The students were selected based on a written essay and their academic record.
Thanks to the generosity of several area businesses, there was no cost to
the selected participants for the Academy. |
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| Throughout the week, students
participated in several team-centered activities designed to highlight
engineering concepts and careers in various engineering fields.
On Monday Academy participants held a
catapult building competition on the Marshall University campus.
Each team designed a Trebuchet out of PVC pipe that launched a
tennis ball using a jug of water as the counterweight. The designers
had to keep factors such as cost, appearance and effectiveness in
mind.
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Tuesday featured visits to two well-known West Virginia civil engineering projects - the New River Gorge bridge and the Bluestone Dam.
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On Wednesday, the students switched from civil engineering to robotics as each student team built and programmed a small robot using special Lego building sets. The teams then competed against each other in challenges where their robot had to move bottles out of a circle, use an electronic sensor to remain within a circle and display various acrobatic skills via the team's program.
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| Each team was split into two parts - a
design group which assembled the robot and a programming group to
code the robot's instructions. |
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| Thursday, the final full day of activity, the Academy returned to civil engineering and also introduced chemical engineering via water quality analysis during a visit to the US Army Corps of Engineers Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam complex in Apple Grove, W.Va. |
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The week concluded Friday with a presentation on
Marshall's engineering program and an luncheon/awards ceremony that featured an address
by Marshall University Provost Dr. Sarah Denman.
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Local media also covered the event with two visits from WSAZ television on
Monday and Wednesday, a visit by WOWK television on Friday and an article in the Sunday,
July 8 edition of the Huntington Herald-Dispatch.
For more information on the Academy or to follow plans for next year's
event, visit the Academy's website.
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