SWE Cadets Hosts Military Prep School Students

Cadets from the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) along with faculty from the Center for Leadership and Diversity in STEM (CLDSTEM) hosted students from Phoenix Military Academy and other Chicago military prep schools. Their day consisted of a tour around West Point, a panel discussion with various STEM cadets on their experiences as a cadet and the importance of pursuing further education in a STEM discipline. After lunch, the students participated in an interactive workshop on the importance of developing renewable energy technologies. During the workshop the cadets demonstrated to the students how blade design impacts the output of wind turbines. The students then assembled their own wind turbines and conducted experiments varying the pitch of the blades to alter the power output. The workshop closed with the students participating in a competition where they designed their own blades from different materials such as plastic, Styrofoam, and cardstock to determine which team could generate the most energy from their turbine.