Tag: steam

Engineering Career Path Program Update

The SMA Engineering Program prepares young women for successful college careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM). By engaging in a cross-disciplinary classroom experience as well as design projects and team competitions with other schools, girls graduate from the program fully qualified and motivated to meet the demands of STEM courses in college. The program is certified by Project Lead the Way, a nationwide coordinated engineering education curriculum. For these reasons, and because of the focus on mathematics and science, the SMA Engineering Program is unique among all-female high schools in the Los Angeles area.

The program offers three project-based engineering classes: Introduction to Engineering Design, Introduction to Computer Engineering, and Principles of Engineering.

This year, we are offering Introduction to Engineering Design and Introduction to Computer Engineering.   The major focus of Introduction to Engineering Design (IED) is the design process and its application. Through hands-on projects, students apply engineering standards and document their work. Students learn to brainstorm, sketch designs, and use an industry standard 2D modeling software to help them design and create solutions to solve proposed problems and communicate their work to their peers.

Students in action in IED:

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SMART Camp

Over the summer, St. Mary’s Academy hosted two sessions of enrichment camps for middle school students we dubbed SMART Camp.  These two-week sessions were comprised of morning and afternoon workshops that incorporated science, math, art and engineering/ technology also known in the education world as STEAM.

The morning portion of the first session of SMART Camp focused on Recycled Science and utilized recycled materials from  Trash for Teaching.  Our students learned about various types of energy sources and the importance of finding renewable alternatives to fossil fuels. Students used iPads to do research on energy sources, created comic strips about their selected topics, and built functioning windmills that could raise an object.

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SMArtBots Competition- Robotics Team Competes at US First Regional

The St. Mary’s Academy robotics team, SMArtBots (Team #3759), competed in the US FIRST regional championship in Ventura California on March 16 through March 18, 2017. This was the seventh regional competition the team has entered since its founding in in November, 2010. SMA fielded one of two all-female teams in the competition. Usually we are the only all-girl team.

This year’s team, pictured here with their mentors, includes from left to right Mentor Daisy Hernandez, Natalie Llamas, Karen Villatoro, Oceanna Lenon, Amy Pinto-Quintanilla, Mentor Mr. Bruce Ioki, Victoria Bravo, Michelle Ramirez, Coach Joe Condrat, Ashley Mancia and Jasmin Perez.

Ms. Hernandez is a Red Tie alumna who was a member of the charter SMArtBots team in 2011 and has returned as a mentor. She is currently studying mechanical engineering engineering at Cal State Los Angeles. Mr. Ioki was present at the meeting which brought US FIRST to the attention of SMA and has mentored the team since its inception. At that meeting, Mr. Condrat accepted the challenge to lead the team in what is arguably the ‘big leagues’ of high school robotics competition. The team fielded its first robot at the Los Angeles Regional competition four months later.

Forty-two teams entered the regional competition held at Ventura College. Seventy-seven qualifying matches were held on Friday and Saturday morning. Each match involves two ‘alliances’, each composed of three teams. Team assignments change for each match so that every team both competes against and cooperates with every other team. At the conclusion of qualification round the eight teams with the best scores form new alliances by choosing from the other teams. SMArtBots had the fifth highest score at the end of qualifications. These 24 teams form eight alliances that compete in the elimination round.

Field of Competition

This year’s robot is the lightest and most reliable robot ever created by the SMArtBots team.   The robot is required to retrieve and deliver objects to a team member in the field and then climb a rope to trip a light. The SMArtBots team achieved its best-ever performance this year, completing the qualification round by winning nine of twelve matches. The team survived the quarter-final round only to be eliminated in the semi-finals. This was the first year any SMArtBots team made it to the play offs.

Robot #3759

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