Students admire their prototype sustainable aircraft shortly after construction.
For the second year in a row, PDS parent and Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM, Kieron Hinds, visited the school to discuss the wonders of engineering with younger students. Kieron has an M.S. in Information Technology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and currently tests mainframe software for IBM.
Mr. Hinds started off his presentation by reminding our lower and middle schoolers that engineering is not just a singular job, but a universally applicable practice that is used to help people and solve some of the world’s toughest problems. The main problem they were going to be focusing on today, though, was climate change, specifically how it can be slowed by reducing excess carbon emissions from airplanes.
Kieron described that in 2021, Civil Air Navigation Services Organization (CANSO), on behalf of the world’s largest aviation companies, made a commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in the global aviation industry by the year 2050. One of the main ways to get there, he told, was using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). SAF comes in different forms, including biofuels, hydrogen fuel, and electricity, and its widespread use can reduce emissions from flying by up to 80%.
Kieron addresses students in the Chapman Room.
After his presentation, Kieron flipped the attention to the students, challenging them to engineer small “fling” planes that were to be miniature prototypes of their own sustainable aircrafts, with human force being the only fuel. Using 4 paper straws, 4 index cards, 2 rubber bands, and 2 paper clips each, in addition to tape, teams of students strategically constructed miniature airplanes in a competition to see whose could fly the furthest using only human force while still landing right side up. Each team had 20 minutes to design and build their planes, and then it was time to test them out in the open space of the Chapman Room. After a few failures, redesigns, and the construction of some creative catapults made out of pencils and straws, everyone’s fling planes were eventually able to complete decently long, successful flights!
Two students prepare to test their miniature airplane.
Each and every student had an absolute blast, and was very proud of their team’s airplane (all of which are now on display in the lobby; come by and take a look!). Once again, Kieron showed us at PDS that engineering, though an extremely demanding, technical, and high-stakes field, can also be a lot of fun, and help to change the world in the process.