Rocket launches, popsicle bridges and electrical experimentation were all part of a badge-earning weekend adventure for some local Boy Scouts Saturday.
“I made this cool system where two fans will be connected by hydro power,” said scout Benjamin Ware, 13, about an experiment in which he participated to earn his electricity badge. “I can connect to the battery and then it will push another fan that will spin to create electricity.”
Alongside the electricity badge, scouts also had an opportunity to earn either an engineering or space exploration badge, all part of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics-themed Bechtel Corp. STEM Merit Badge Day.
The Georgia-Carolina Council of the Boy Scouts of America welcomed volunteering engineers from Bechtel Corp. to its new GCC Adventure Center facility in Evans, formerly the Augusta Jewish Community Center, to offer lessons in the three subjects to scouts interested in STEM.
“We’re learning about bridges and how types of bridges are built around the world,” said Garren Furtado, 13, who chose to seek his engineering badge. “It’s really interesting how, through history, some civilizations have built these bridges, the architecture and mechanical uses.”
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Shell Shortes, senior industrial hygienist with Bechtel, taught the lessons for the engineering badge. One of the activities he led the scouts in was the construction of a self-supporting Leonardo da Vinci bridge made of popsicle sticks, as the focus in his lectures were about structures.
Shortes says that talking about structures provided a context to explore the heart of engineering, which is problem-solving.
“We identify the problem, we problem-solve, we develop, test, fail, learn again and again,” said Shortes.
Kate Smith, open vessel testing milestone manager at Bechtel, and Samantha Merry, mechanical engineer with Bechtel, conducted the lessons for the space exploration badge, which included lessons on rockets, and scouts were each given their own rockets to launch outside the classroom, 200 feet into the air.
“When I was a kid my parents took me to these types of events where I got I got to go to the Space Center in Dallas, I got to do all these types of activities,” said Smith about why she chose to volunteer. “I enjoy doing this. It’s the thing that made me be an engineer.”
The day was coordinated when GCC scout executive Dan Rogers was approached by Bechtel senior health safety and environmental advisor Godwin Furtado, whose son is in scouting.
“This is the first event in our new facility,” said Rogers. “We’re going to be able to do so many programs here that we could never do.”
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering Columbia County with The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
