SCHOFIELD, Wis. (WSAW) - DC Everest middle school students put their engineering skills to the test on Tuesday.
800 7th and 8th graders got the chance to build their own bridge and test its strength. It’s part of the Engineering Tomorrow bridge project that teaches teens about engineering.
Engineers from Greenheck and C-Tech worked with the students to teach them about the engineering profession.
“We currently brought in 15 engineers from local industry partners and their going to kind of partner up with different science classrooms along the way and do their test today,” said Aaron Hoffman, a career and education coordinator at DC Everest.
The Engineering Tomorrow organization works to boost the engineering interests in teens.
“They were able to apply a lot of their knowledge and a lot of the different skills that they have,” said Austin Will, manufacturing engineer for Greenheck Fan.
Tekiya Chaney Petty, a 7th grader at DC Everest, said the project made her consider engineering as a career.
“It definitely made me think a little bit about engineering. It definitely made me open my eyes to it. I wasn’t really thinking about engineering before,” said Chaney Petty.
The custom-built bridges were tested for their durability.
“The best comment I heard from a student is ‘you know through this process I kinda got to see what my future might look like as an engineer and that’s exactly what we were going for,” said Hoffman.
The event gave students a chance to experience what it’s like in the engineering field.
“I think it’s good to have the students get that physical interaction because then they can kind of put a physical thing to the ideology of what engineering actually is,” said Will.