Hoffman Middle Students Attend Physics and Engineering Festival at Texas A&M University

Hoffman Middle students learned about the physics of levers at one of the exhibits.

Student members of the Technology Club at Hoffman Middle School participated in Texas A&M University’s Fourth Annual Physics and Engineering Festival held March 22 in College Station.

Attendees discovered funny, puzzling, and fascinating hands-on experiments and exhibitions. They also experienced engineering technology demonstrations.

Throughout the day, participants unleashed their inner scientists aboard a square-wheeled bicycle, ran through a pool of cornstarch, generated electricity and shot balloons with lasers. More than 100 fun experiments and displays illustrated basic scientific and engineering technology-related concepts and principles. Participants also met with Texas A&M faculty, staff and students who manned all the exhibits.

Every year, the festival has participation from various departments — Chemistry, Mathematics, Atmospheric Sciences, Biochemistry and Biophysics, Physics and Astronomy, and Aerospace Engineering.

The festival showcased dozens of exciting new demonstrations built by university student teams affiliated with the university-funded DEEP (Discover, Explore and Enjoy Physics and Engineering) Program. More than 60 DEEP students were involved in creating the new demos, and many were on hand to present their work.

In addition to exhibits, the daylong festival featured three performances of the Science Circus by physics showman Rhys Thomas, who teaches Newtonian physics through a rare blend of science, comedy and circus arts in a performance often compared to a Pixar movie. Attendees also had the opportunity to meet NASA astronaut and professor Dr. Gregory Chamitoff, a former flight engineer and science officer aboard the International Space Station who in 2011 performed the final spacewalk of the overall Space Shuttle Program, as well as Nobel Prize-winning Texas A&M physicists Dr. Dudley R. Herschbach and Dr. David M. Lee.

Elementary to high school students from across Texas that attended the festival also had the opportunity to compete in events.

Hoffman Middle School’s team competed in the Roller Coaster Rush Event. Students had two hours to design, build and test a roller coaster that could carry a marble down its track. They were limited to only using 15 school newspapers and four feet of masking tape for materials. Teams earned points based on the track length, complexity and success of the roller coaster design.

The Hoffman Middle team is seen working on its roller coaster design.

“The Hornet’s track fell before the judging and placed fifth out of the five middle school teams competing,” said Richard Houdek, teacher Hoffman Middle and sponsor of the Technology Club at the campus. “Nevertheless, Hoffman’s students were excited to compete, see the A&M campus and to experience a small slice of college life.”

According to Houdek, the students enjoyed the festival.

A Hoffman Middle student participated in an illusion exhibit.

“Students really had fun exploring scientific concepts with hands-on demonstrations such as inertia to Chladni’s Law about modal frequencies as well as seeing liquid nitrogen freeze to static electricity via Van der Graaf electrostatic generators.”

Houdek added that the Hoffman Middle students liked talking with the physics and engineering students at the various stations. The university students explained how the various scientific principles worked. The A&M students also shared why they decided to attend the university as well as what college life is like.

“This event got the students excited about science and excited about going to college,” said Houdek. “I want them to be excited about learning and to see their career possibilities in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.”

A Texas A&M Tier One Program (TOP) grant, the Department of Physics and Astronomy, the Department of Aerospace Engineering, the George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, and the Texas A&M College of Science sponsored all the events.

Hoffman Middle students are pictured at the hands-on exhibit about the physics of a trebuchet (similar to a catapult).