High School Day - Engineers Week 2018
As part of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Los Angeles Younger Member Forum’s (LA YMF) Engineers Week 2018, High School Day was hosted on Friday, February 23rd at the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) Headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles. The event brought together over 150 high school students from five different schools including Burton Tech High School, Opportunities for Learning, Rosemead High School, USC Brio College Prep, and West Adams Prep. The fun-filled day started with an Engineering 101 discussion given by MWD’s Howard Lum, on what engineers do and how the high school students can pursue a career in engineering. Other High School Day speakers consisted of technical presentations on the Colorado River Aqueduct by Arman Motavvef of MWD and the Mars Rover by Michael Staab of NASA JPL.
Students were also able to get creative with a catapult building challenge using common materials such as popsicle sticks, straws, and tape, and were asked to design a catapult that could launch a ping pong ball into a target. The winning groups of the hands-on activities received gift cards! There were also two students from Rosemead High School who received awards for the High School Day Essay Contest on how they would address infrastructure concerns in respect to Los Angeles hosting the 2028 Olympics.
The closing speaker Adrian Hightower of MWD summarized the highlights of the day, and sent the students off to the lunch and the Engineering Fair. The Engineering Fair consisted of over 10 companies and universities hosting booths to share information to the students regarding what their companies do in relation to engineering and what it is like being a college engineering student.
ASCE LA YMF is extremely happy and grateful to put on another successful Engineering Week High School Day and would like to thank Metropolitan Water District for their sponsorship and continued support helping organize the annual event. We can’t wait until next! Thank you to all the Engineers Week sponsors that make events like these possible so that we can continue to inspire future engineers!
