STEM Seminar with O’Neill High School

In conjunction with the USMAPS Math Department and faculty members from D/Systems Engineering, D/Math hosted 80 Algebra I students and five faculty members from James I. O'Neill High School in Highland Falls for a full-day STEM seminar recently. The students participated in several hands-on workshops including bridge building, drone flying and flight planning, robotics, origami, and projectile motion. During each workshop, students were introduced to the basic math models underlying the activity, were given short calculation problems requiring the application of Algebra I skills, and then were asked to develop a hands-on solution for an applied problem. The students also toured the Simon Center for the Professional Military Ethic and received an information briefing on the cadet honor code. During the opening ice breaker, it was discovered that the O'Neill students have some special insights. The day began with a warm-up activity during which the students were asked to make "coolness" graphs. That is, the y-axis was defined from not cool to really cool, and the students could define the x-axis however they wanted. They then had to draw an appropriate graph to reflect how "cool" the entry on the x-axis was. The winning entry, voted on by a panel of "expert" judges, selected the "football wins" graph. The graph showed "Army" football wins as really cool and "Navy" football wins as uncool!