PCE News
PCE Outreach Fall Updates
October 28, 2024
We kicked off the season at National Aviation Day at the West Michigan Regional Airport in Holland, MI, where over 100 kids stopped by and learned about engineering design and thrust as they built and launched their own paper stomp rockets.
Tech Week Grand Rapids brought thousands of visitors to the community, and the PCE Outreach team made an appearance at events aimed at future innovators of all ages. At the Kent Career Technical Center, 750 high school students gathered for the Tech Week Showcase to learn about potential futures in technology careers. Participants who stopped by the PCE Outreach station learned about math and geometry by constructing a necklace from a Mobius Strip; a unique shape with one continuous side.
The Confluence Festival, a Tech Week event in downtown Grand Rapids, welcomed over 7,000 visitors to their Future Innovator’s Zone, where PCE Outreach joined 25 presenting sponsors in educating and inspiring the next generation. Kids worked together to create a collaborative masterpiece of Engineering and Art – a sculpture made from 3 dimensional shapes that kids learned to construct.
Student and faculty volunteers from the Occupational Safety and Health department taught visitors how to use Personal Protective Equipment to keep Louie the Laker safe in an interactive game.
Concurrently, Engineering faculty and Engineering students participated in Robotics Day at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, engaging with over 700 people during Art Prize. Folks of all ages stopped by to see line-following robots built and designed by first-year engineering students from Grand Valley. Robotics Day at the GRPM was built around the send-off of the Robot Zoo Exhibit at the museum and focused on robotics integration as it exists in academics and in the community.
Finally, we welcomed competitors at the Grand Rapids Girls (GRG) All Girls FIRST Robotics Competition to build an Infinity fidget cube and learn about the College of Engineering at GVSU. We chatted with high school students from 19 local teams at Wyoming High School.
The PCE Outreach team has plenty of events coming up, and we are excited to continue to engage with our community throughout the school year. Coming up you can find PCE Outreach at: the Hopkins High School Career Fair, West Michigan Robotics Invitational (WMRI) FIRST Robotics Event, FIRST Robotics 2025 Kick-off & Kit Delivery, FIRST Robotics Rookie Workshop, GRPM Engineering Day for Schools, and the Roger That! Symposium. If you’re interested in learning how PCE Outreach can engage with your events, please contact us at [email protected].