Hello, we are the Psi Fi girls. We consist of five girls,
Carmen Vidal, Crystal Roznak, Tania Sierra, Santania Jean-Baptiste, and
Elisa Juárez, plus our mentor Janice Athias. We all attend the Girl's
RISE program, a summer program. The program is held at the Miami Museum
of Science.
During this session we had to create a battery operated car and line tracker.
To finish our two projects on time and successfully, jobs had to be assigned.
There are 4 different jobs. Some people had 2 jobs, while others might have
shared jobs. The Project engineer is in charge of keeping the team on task
and in order. She also handles group safety. The Facilities engineer is
in charge of keeping the areas where work is done clean and in order. She
collects, stores, and passes out all materials. The Developmental engineer
actually designs and constructs the model and the cars. Even though there
are jobs given, teamwork is still required. Each person still must help
someone else, or the team, in their tasks. Here are our team jobs:
Test engineers: Santania
Jean-Baptiste & Crystal Roznak. Santania and Crystal are working together
while assembling the line tracker. As test engineers, our job is to ensure
that our tracker and car works. It took a tremendous amount of time because
there were many problems that occurred. We had problems with the gears -
ensuring that they were tight enough. In addition, we spent a lot of time
adjusting the wiring to respond to the switch. In the end, it turned out
great!
Developmental Engineer: Elisa Juárez
My role was to help create the car - I had to decide on the best design for the car: from the gear ratios to the frame. In the end, I decided it was best for us to use a variety of materials for the frame: styrofoam, cardboard and plastic. The challenge was to use inexpensive material to make the best design. It had to be aerodynamiclly sound and fit the chassis perfectly. I ran tests to see what would be the best way to decorate the car frame. I decided against paint because it would not stick to the materials we chose. A major problem I ran into was making the car balance.
Developmental engineer 2: Tania Sierra
I worked with Elisa in designing the car. I was also responsible
for drawing pictures of the frame and chassis. It was a lot of hard work
but everything came together.
Project engineer: Carmen Vidal
I was in charge of all team operations and responsible for checking the assignment. I was also in charge of leading group discussions about both progress and results of the projects.
Hi! I am the mentor of the Psi Phi's. As a recent graduate at the Florida International University in Electrical Engineering; this is my first time working as a mentor at the Miami Museum of Science and let me tell you it has been a wonderful experience. I helped the girls learn about gear ratios, car structures and basic electrical circuits. Seeing the girls work together in completing thier many tasks has made me feel real proud.
Note: All team members are Facilities engineers.
If you would like to meet us indivually, feel free to visit our personal
homepage by clicking on our names above.
If you are wondering what R.I.S.E. stands for it is Raising Interest in Science and Engineering. In the RISE program we learn about diferent careers in engineering. The program is made for girls to give us a chance to learn about engineering. Not many females involve themselves in the engineering field. The Girls RISE program is run from a grant from the National Science Foundation (nsf)Wendie James is the founder of the program. We get to go on the internet and learn how to do graphic, e-mail, etc.We were also given the opertunity to build electrical cars and a line tracker. We also learned about different types of circuits and If you would like to know more about the Girls RISE program feel free to visit the Girls RISE Homepage by clicking on the text "Girls RISE" below.
To your left is our electric car and to your right is our line tracker.
We had many field trips this year. We went to interesting
places that helped us with informaion on our main project. We also saw the
many different fields of engineering.
Our first field trip was to the University of Miami, on July 3. We went
to the engineering wing at the University. We saw a human-powered submarine,
a lab where artificial heart valves are grown, a room where they study them,
a workshop, and a room where a man donated a million dollars to decorate.
This room had the latest computers, and software. These high-tech computers
and thier software were used to creat a 3-D computer animated movie. The
movie was shown. At the conclution of the movie we all congratulated the
UM student, that spent over 2000 hours of his life to make it. 2000 hours
is about an average of 8 hours a day, 5 days a week with 2 weeks of vacation.
We later went to a lab where they test water for ecoli. The lady who worked
there was an enviromental engineer. We recieved free t-shirts, magnets,
and an ENGINEER magazine at the conclution of the field trip. Click on the image below to visit the University
of Miami's web site.
Our next field trip was to the Mongomery Watson Waste Plant. We learned how they treat the water. We saw the model of there plant. One part of the plant was built in 1960's and the other in 1985. It was very interseting to learn about our water. We got to seen the machines in action. While we were at Montgomery Watson we learned a little more in detail than we learn in school about how our water is treated. This was very interesting fieldtrip.
Our last field trip was on the 14th. We went to the Blockbuster IMAX theater. We saw the movie L5. It is about the first city in space, 100 years in the future. No, not alien attacks or bombing. The city, L5, is running low on pure water. The Senior Scientist observed comet is aproaching Jupiter. The comet has water in the nucleus. It is decided to land on the comet and change its direction away from Jupiter and towards L5. If everything goes well, it would provide L5 with water. Something goes wrong with the rocket they sent out and lose all contact with the engineer in it. He has to think quickly to get out of this situation and make it back to L5 with water. This movie made all of us wonder the future that is in store for us. But most of all it taught us that engineers are important to the future. Feel free, to visit the IMAX webpage by clicking on the image below.
