May 30, 2024 – Collins Aerospace gave students a crash course on the physics of collision safety during a recent Lunch-and-Learn workshop at Hanes Magnet Middle School.
Collins Aerospace comes to Hanes every year for a Lunch-and-Learn with students. Employees of the company introduce themselves and provide some background information on what it’s like to work in their field before leading students in a team-based building and design competition. Collins Aerospace is a frequent collaborator in extracurricular activities at Hanes, sending representatives to STEM nights and career fairs and organizing the annual “Introduce a Girl to an Engineer Day” for eighth grade girls. Magnet Coordinator Stephanie Anderson says the company’s partnership has been a big help in Hanes’s recent STEM accomplishments, including winning Magnet Schools of America's School of Excellence Award and their re-certification as a North Carolina STEM School of Distinction from the NC Department of Education.
“Collins Aerospace's partnership has been integral in Hanes’s recent accomplishments as a STEM magnet school,” Anderson said. “Exposing students to engineers who look like them and promoting diversity is one of Hanes’s STEM goals. Showing students multiple types of STEM careers represented by a diverse demographic will help meet the demand of the continuously growing STEM industry.
The object of the challenge was to design and construct a landing pad for a crash test dummy’s head to land on and provide the best shock absorbance. Students had a variety of supplies to build their prototypes with, including hollow structures like straws, cushioning materials like marshmallows, and plastic bags that could be blown up to simulate airbags. There were countless factors to consider when coming up with an ideal strategy, and students quickly learned that talking to their teammates and combining ideas would be important if they wanted to get a functional end product.
“That’s the beauty of working in a team,” said Kyle Windland from Collins Aerospace. “You can be the biggest star in the world, but you’ll never know everything on your own.”
Real engineers constantly design and redesign devices like this to prevent injuries in vehicle accidents, albeit with more sophisticated tools. Once students tested their initial concepts, they were given another round to make improvements based on what they had learned in the first trials. Reevaluation is an essential part of the scientific process, and not only was this good practice for students considering careers in STEM fields, but it was also inspiring to see that they could come back from a mistake better equipped than ever to tackle the problem at hand.
“Our group got off to a rocky start,” said Luis Martinez, whose team made major improvements in their second attempt at impact testing. “In the end, we got our redemption.”
Lunch-and-Learn sessions are always valuable growing experiences for students at Hanes, and they’re also inspirational for the engineers who run them. Seeing new ideas develop and flourish in these tests reminds them that the future is bright in the world of engineering.
“It’s very inspiring to see how creative these students can be,” said Kathryn Iler from Collins Aerospace. “I see something new every time.”