The After School girls explored a different type of renewable energy this week. Acting as wind energy engineers, they converted average toy cars to be wind-powered cars. The girls created turbines and attached them to the end of a straw on the back of the car. Using a wind source, they timed how long it took for their cars to travel a set distance. The groups made adjustments to their turbine angles and blades to design the fastest car possible.

Name: Kelly Morrelli, PE CFM
Company: CP&Y, Inc. / Women in Transportation Seminar (WTS)
Title: Professional Engineer / STEM Committee Chair

Girls In STEM 2012 Downtown Designer workshop. The girls got to construct a city made out of all different types of candy. 

Girlstart: Was there a person in your life that encouraged you in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math)? If so, please tell us a little bit about how she/he encouraged you:

Kelly: After being accepted to attend The University of Texas in Austin, and claimed a major as “undeclared”. A good friend of mine was majoring in Electrical Engineering and encouraged me attend a Society in Women Engineering meeting. After talking with multiple women majoring in different disciplines of engineering, I decided a career in engineering may be great fit for me. Ever since I was young, I loved putting models together, playing with Legos, creating and building, and a career in civil engineering now allows me to be creative and I get to see my design, i.e. roadways, culverts, bridges being built to help people in the “real world”.

Have you ever seen a gas chemical reaction? Try out this experiment and see the gas that is produced during the reaction!

Girlstart’s After School participants were eager to return to club after a week off during Spring Break. The girls discussed the differences between renewable and nonrenewable resources and then took a turn working as water resource engineers. Teaming up in small groups, the girls built a hydroelectric turbine and tested their design. During 3 trials, the groups counted the number of times their turbines rotated as their partners poured water over them. Based on their observations, the groups were able to edit their turbine designs as they talked about the factors that affected their success, such as the speed of the flowing water, the number and size of the turbine’s blades, and the ability of the axel to move.