Williamsville Courier/ Friday, January 16, 2015
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JANUARY 16, 2015
CIRCULATION 7,574
NCCC hosts 18th annual Tech Wars Competition By Rebecca Gunning LOCKPORT STAR EDITOR
On Wednesday, Jan. 14, Niagara County Community College hosted its 18th annual Tech Wars Competition. Nearly 30 school districts from all over Western New York visited the campus to compete in 21 different engineering and technology events. The event was open to students in grades 6 through 12, with middle school and high school divisions in many of the competitions. Eighteen years ago when Tech Wars first began, there was one event with students from three schools. This year’s competition had around 700 students registered. There is a wide array of events, ranging from the amount of weight a wooden bridge can hold to robots building towers to windmill construction. One of the most anticipated ones is the Sumo Bot competition, which high school students build 20-pound robots to face off against each other. “These things are built from scratch by the students,” explained Mark Voisinet, an instructor at NCCC who has been involved with Tech Wars since 2000. “They’re starting with raw materials and doing everything from mechanical construction of it to all of the mounting
of electronic components to all the programing and wiring that needs to be done in order to run the robots.” Another event that saw many participants was the Cardboard Boat Regatta. In this competition, students must construct a boat using only broken down cardboard, tape, glue and paint. They then must be able to row it from one end of NCCC’s pool to the other and back. The oars also can only be created with cardboard and duct tape. “That’s one of the competitions where you see a wide array of very well done and thought-out projects as compared to the occasional refrigerator box with some duct tape holding it together,” said Voisinet with a laugh. One of the teams that participated in the regatta was a team of four girls from Sweet Home High School, who wore squid hats and made a boat that looked like a whale. The girls’ team is made up of senior Allie Perfetto, freshman Alyssa Duffy, junior Madeline Bell, and her sister Alison, a freshman, and wound up finishing in third place. Voisinet found the allgirl team to be encouraging and follows the trend of more girls developing an interest in S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. “We’re just starting to
REBECCA GUNNING
L to R: Sweet Home students Alison Bell (freshman), Alyssa Duffy (freshman), Allie Perfetto (senior) and Madeline Bell (junior) placed third in the Cardboard Boat Regatta. see a little more growth with women coming into our technology programs,” he explained. “There’s absolutely nothing in technology that a woman can’t do as well, if not better, than a man.” Gina Beam, NCCC’s director of public relations, believes that if schools and S.T.E.M. programs begin to target women at a younger age then they will continue to see an increase in female participants. “It’s really key to market at the middle school and high school levels,” she said. “There’s a trend
nationally that says girls continue to have the capability to be as involved [in technology] and stay on pace with the boys in middle school, but they tend to get bored or go into other fields at the middle school. We have to continue to get them to stay involved at the middle school level.” Voisinet, who is the program coordinator of the Computer Aided Design and Drafting curriculum at NCCC, has found there are many jobs open in the S.T.E.M. fields right now, but many of the companies cannot find enough work-
ers with the knowledge to work there. “There’s never a lack of jobs in the S.T.E.M. fields,” he said. “What we lack is graduates in those fields. Just as a society and as a country, we need more people to come into the S.T.E.M. fields.” NCCC’s Tech Wars is the perfect event to get students excited about those fields of study while at the same time learning a great deal. Students spend weeks and even months preparing for the events, in hopes of placing in the top three in their competition.
“This event affords the opportunity to have very tangible projects with very tangible goals, and the students are able to apply their engineering, technology and scientific knowledge toward these projects,” Voisinet said. While some of the competitions see hours of work destroyed in mere seconds (think bridges snapping under heavy weights as just one example), it’s evident all the kids simply enjoy being there. “Whether they win or lose doesn’t matter,” Voisinet said. “The fact that they’re here and competing – that’s the win for every single one of these students. It’s nice if they win, but you see a smile on all of these kids.” Each individual competition named winners, but there were also overall winners as well. At the middle school level, Grand Island Middle School placed first, Clarence Middle School placed second, and Lasalle Prep placed third. At the high school level, Cleveland Hill High School was named the 2015 Tech War Champions with Grand Island High School placing second and Orchard Park and Tonawanda City High Schools finishing in a tie for third. For more information on NCCC’s Tech Wars, please visit www.wnytea.com. For more information on NCCC’s programs, please visit www.niagaraccc.edu.