GODFREY - Several local high schoolers met at the Lewis & Clark Community College River Bend Arena to compete in an annual trebuchet contest last Friday, March 24. Molly Freimuth, a math professor at LC, said the event is a great way for students to show off their engineering skills and also learn about the post-graduation engineering and STEM opportunities in the area.
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“I absolutely love seeing the students so animated and excited about their competition,” Freimuth said. “It’s really awesome to see the different designs and the models that they tend to go with and which ones seem to be successful, or how the kids adjust if they aren’t successful.
“It’s a great opportunity for high school students to get out and see the local area schools and Engineering and STEM focus, whether that’s Missouri S&T [Missouri University of Science & Technology], SIUE School of Engineering … it’s also cool for them to see Lewis and Clark, where they could start here with their engineering and move on to a four-year school.”
Darren Mosley, a math and physics teacher at Southwestern High School, said he appreciates LC hosting students to show off their hard work.
“They put in time and energy both in class and outside of class to come and participate today, and they’re having a great time so far,” Mosley said. “It’s a great thing that Lewis & Clark does for our community schools, and we really appreciate being able to come down here.”
Janiece Jones with Missouri S&T said she attended the event to introduce students to the university, which she said is best-known for engineering. They have a wide range of engineering programs, including Mechanical, Civil, and Electrical engineering, Petroleum and Aerospace Engineering, Ceramic Engineering, and more.
“Finding the perfect fit or the right fit college for a student is always a difficult process, and so just being able to guide students in their decision-making process is always a rewarding experience,” Jones said.
Bobbie Brown, coordinator of the Dental Hygiene Program at LC, said she attends the event every year and that it’s “always fun.”
“We love to come out to the trebuchet competition, it’s always fun,” Brown said. “It gives us an opportunity to talk to high school students about our programs … it’s just a great experience for us, and I hope it’s an informative one for the potential students in our program as well.”
Freimuth concluded by saying she hopes the event will grow even more over the next few years.
“We’ve been doing this for a handful of years, and after COVID, we haven’t had the best amount of teams competing, so we look forward every year from here on out to grow and get the word out and hope that participating schools are willing and ready to come and get more teams going so the competition can grow and grow,” she said.
A full video from the event is available at the top of this story or on Riverbender.com/video.
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