Arlington School & Family Magazine January/February 2016 | Page 20

Campus News

Seguin High School
The Sky’s the Limit With PLTW Engineering Courses
Students in Felicia Hailey’s
Project Lead the Way
beginning engineering classes
are learning very quickly how to make their studies soar.
Introduction to Engineering Design students participated
in “Mission Marshmallow.” Their mission was simple, but
it would take the collaboration and problem-solving skills
of every team member to accomplish it. The team who
could build the highest freestanding tower that supports a
marshmallow would win. The catch is that the team could
only use the following items and had a mere 20 minutes to
complete: 30 uncooked spaghetti noodles, a 12-inch strip
of tape, one marshmallow and a pair of scissors. Rommel
B., Xiemena G., Deshawn B. and Caleb L. proved that
they had the teamwork, creativity and design skills of true
engineers with their 3-foot tower of marshmallow.
The second course in this rigorous sequence of classes is
Principles of Engineering. Hailey’s POE students had an
equally challenging assignment to design a plane that would
f ly as far as possible with very limited supplies in under
17 minutes. Using only a pencil, paper, rubber bands,
string, straws, masking tape, paper clips, a grocery bag and
each other, Team Nicholas won the aerodynamic challenge.
The Project Lead the Way (PLTW) mission is to prepare
a diverse group of students to be successful in engineering
and engineering technology programs. The career and
18 Arlington School & Family - January/February 2016

technical education department in the AISD implemented
this sequence of courses to address our nation’s shortage of
engineers and highly skilled technicians. This translates
into opportunities of excellence for you. To find out more,
visit with your campus counselor or DM us on Twitter
@ CTEArlingtonISD. †

students had ... to

design a plane that would
fly as far as possible ... in
under 17 minutes