Support for girls only STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) classes at Manhattan Beach Middle School received a boost last Thursday when 30 MBMS sixth, seventh and eighth grade girls participated in National Engineers Week at Northrop Grumman in Manhattan Beach. The students’ visit began with a tour of Northrop’s new exhibition hall, featuring models of satellites and planes the company has built.
The students also visited a “tower bay” where they watched engineers assembling the rocket that will propel the James Webb Space Telescope one million miles away from earth. The telescope, which Northrop is also building, will look back 13.5 billion years, to the formation of our universe.
In the morning, the students assembled electronic circuit boards. In the afternoon, they learned how complex manufacturing processes are broken down into eight steps, which begin with identifying the client’s needs and progress through research, testing, budgeting and assembly. The students then followed the eight steps to manufacture desserts (from cookies and donuts) that met the specifications (under $5) of Northrop volunteers, who acted as clients.
Northrop engineer Karen Tokashiki told students how she enjoyed math and music when she was young, but anticipated majoring in music when she went to the University of California Davis in the late ‘70s.
“I didn’t know what an engineer was,” she said. “But then I took a class where we designed a circuit to control four-way stoplights. It was fun,” Tokashiki now works on a pulley system that controls the curvature of the sun shield that will protect the James Webb Space Telescope from temperatures, which will range from 200 degrees fahrenheit to negative 400 degrees fahrenheit. Lessons learned from controlling the curvature of the sun shield are now being used by optometrist to better understand the curvature of the human eyeball.
Manhattan Beach Middle school science and STEM class teacher Kristina Atia, who accompanied her students to Northrop, said MBMS is contemplating all girls STEM classes for next fall. The school currently has five coed STEM classes averaging 38 students each. Atia said all girl STEM classes had been popular and effective when the district offered them several years ago.
Generally, she said, MBMS STEM projects are based on current events. She said her students have worked on landers, rovers and fire shields designed for visits to mars.
But the STEM classes also take on lighter projects.
Her students are currently preparing to compete in the national Rube Goldberg Machine competition, to be held in Santa Monica in March. The contest was inspired by cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who drew complicated devices to accomplish simple tasks. One of his most famous cartoons is “Professor Butts and the self-operating napkin.”
The task for this year’s Rube Goldberg contest is to apply a band-aid. ER
