By Kunjoo Park ’11
For many years, Kent has been giving scholarships to its students and faculty so that they can participate in summer engineering programs. This year, Kent School is endorsing many pre-engineering programs to help broaden opportunities for students who are interested in this field. Kent’s Pre-Engineering program aims to introduce students to various subjects and practices and to give them chances to participate in general engineering.
One of the pre-engineering programs already in place is the Robotics Team, led by Mr. Austin. Currently, the team consists of 23 members and is growing. Many members participated in programs outside of Kent School during this past summer. Michelle Park’11 went to Brown University this summer and learned specifically about Alternative Energy Engineering, which covers topics from new car fuel to global warming. The camp, which ran from mid-July into August, examined the limitations of alternative fuels and how new technology could generate these alternative energy sources efficiently to practically integrate them into daily life. Gabriel Watson’10 spent two weeks in a summer camp at Union College. Through Kent’s Wentz Engineering Fund, Kent was able to award her financial assistance in order to participate in the camp. During the twelve days that she was there, Watson designed a toy for children with disabilities, incorporating both motors and circuits. The Union College Camp is unique in that only females were admitted, in order to pave the road for the future female engineers. “During my time there, I was able to meet female engineers, some were some who worked as technicians, teachers, managers and retirees who shared their experiences and gave advice about what to expect as a woman engineer,” says Watson of her experience at the program.
This year, Kent has entered a national challenge, hosted by the Junior Engineering Technical Society. This year, the challenge between schools all across the country is to design a machine to help a handicapped person. Sonia Yao’06 explains, “We are going to find someone who needs assistance and attempt to make an assisting device for him or her.” In entering the contest, our JETS team hopes to extend engineering into the community. In preparation for building and designing, the team hopes to accumulate more members who are interested in robotics, engineering, filming or drawing.
To further increase the knowledge of our pre-engineering program, Kent will host guest speaker Mr. H. Vincent Poor. Mr. Poor is the Dean of Engineering at Princeton University. “I applaud you and your colleagues for establishing [the engineering team]” said Poor, complimenting Kent School for providing such a variety of opportunities. Poor is a great advocate of engineering, a man who, like other Deans of Engineering at other universities, sees much potential for engineering in the 21st Century.
The goal of the pre-engineering program is to foster academic advancement of Kent students and ultimately to encourage them to pursue engineering careers that will benefit all humankind, and it appears that we are off to a great start.
