The six student crew members who participated in the SMUD Solar Boat competition in May and their advisor participated in the SunDay FunDay outreach event at the Lawrence Hall of Sciences (LHS) on August 5, 2018, an event tailored to facilitate STEM interest and education for young children (~10 years of age). As the theme was sustainability, the Solar Boat was the perfect addition.
In contrast to the SMUD Solar Boat regatta in early May, for which the Skyline Solar Boat was originally designed, this activity was all about demonstrating and explaining. All crew members did a fantastic job of presenting their boat – with almost a year of build-time – to inquisitive museum visitors. Aside from the presentation the team also conducted a workshop for the young visitors to build their own boats. The participants could choose between four different boat designs: a balloon bubble boat, a steam boat, little paddle boats and sail boats. This elicited such excitement and enthusiasm in the kids wanting to learn more about different types of propulsion that the team was besieged from 10 am in the morning until 3 pm in the afternoon.
This event though, was for three of our students the last ‘ride’ on the Solar Boat, as Mikaela Quintos, Alex Hercules and Clifford Yu all now successfully transferred to a four-year college. Congratulations! Lucky for us, the other members, Daniel Messier, Gianni Grelli and Jonathan Weber are excited to remain part of the Solar boat team which with new challenges will set off on its further voyage to the 2019 Solar Boat Regatta.
Article by Marco Wehrfritz
