By Gabby Sahm
staff writer
@gabbysahm
The Coppell High School columns were filled to the brim on Nov. 2, with the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Academy, hosting its seventh annual STEM Expo, showing off some of their latest and greatest inventions so far.
The expo is a community gathering for engineers and for people who like engineering to come and see of CHS own show off works, and explain how they built them. Also, many colleges and companies are there, ready to talk to any who might be interested.
“This is a time for the STEM kids to show off what they have been working on for the first two six weeks,” junior Zane Erickson said. “It is also a time for people to see what we are going to plan out and work towards in the future.”
Erickson, along with fellow junior Neno Teruya, are both a part of the Inventeam, who showed their first mock up for Gateways, an invention that will incorporate new technologies to develop a new interactive training device, that is capable of being immediately personalized for each student suffering from disabilities. They have working on the project for months, and could not wait to see the feedback they got from engineers and members of the community.
“One of the most important parts is if you are a student running a booth, it’s the feedback you receive,” Teruya said. “Feedback is good because you see different points of views and opinions on what you have been working on.”
Some of the inventions different teams have been working on are a solar car, a bike that powers lights and the robotics team’s previous year’s robot, along with some other projects. They were all on display for people to come up and ask questions about and interact with.
The STEM Academy coordinator Michael Yakubovsky has been running the expo for many years and overseen every invention or product being shown. He likes being able to see his students interact with the many different colleges and people who show up at the expo.
“Big thing is for them to learn communication skills,” Yakubovsky said. “One second they could be talking to a 3-year-old kid, then the next talking to an engineer or professor or to a college or high school student.”
The expo overall gives students a look at what could be coming in the future. If they decided engineering is the best fit for them, they can talk to the many representatives from the colleges and the engineers who have booths set up.
“[Students] have a chance to show the colleges what they do, and get the word out about their program,” Yakubovsky said. “It also gives them a chance to show what they have been working on in class and shows how that ties with industry and college.”
