Middle school students from the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta and around the state headed home this weekend after two weeks studying engineering at the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP) in Anchorage. Their last project was a bust, literally.
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They've made towers, windmills and participated in computer design. Now their last task before heading home - testing the bridges they've built.
Teacher: "Go grab your bridge and help them set up... Okay.”
With safety glasses on, a huge semi-circle of kids watched as one their friends carefully positioned the miniature bridge her team constructed between two metal cross bars.
Another team is setting up right next to her. Both prepare to hang a heavy wooden box under tiny bridges made out of light balsa wood. While the nervous builders watch, the testers slowly let the bridges carry the weight of the box.
Both bridges break before any additional weight is added.
Watching is 13-year-old Tyler Charles from Akiachak. He saw his bridge break with a load of only two pounds.
Charles: “We didn't make the bottom that good.”
Eurich: “What would you do again, if you could do it again?”
Charles: “More pieces of balsa wood on the bottom."
Eleven-year-old Kallie Andrew from Bethel says her bridge held 15 pounds before it gave way. She thinks that the next time around she would use thicker pieces of wood on the bottom, adding that the glue held well.
Andrew: "I think it's the strength of the wood, because we put like a teaspoon of glue on each one."
Alstrom: "It's always fun when the students get up and say, 'Well, I could have done this.'”
Audry Alstrom is a regional director with the ANSEP middle school program.
Alstrom: "And so and so did this, and it worked well. And so you know they are continually learning and they are excited about it."
Alstrom says one team of this year's middle schoolers built a bridge that held more than a hundred pounds before it broke.
Alstrom: "I think it turned out that it held 135 pounds, but then, you know, it weighed less than a kilogram."
A bridge weighing less than a kilogram holding 135 pounds of load is something to be proud of. For the engineers in the audience, that translates to an impressive mass/strength ratio of 600.
Often the biggest challenge for many of the young students in the science and engineering program is two weeks away from home. Kallie Andrew of Bethel is no exception.
Andrew: "I've kind of been thinking about home for about two weeks."
Homesickness has plagued many village students when they go away to university. It's something the staff at ANSEP addresses by talking frankly about the problem and putting children into teams to help build social connections as well as bridges.
Alstrom: "They stick it out. They participate. At the end of the program they don't want to leave. It makes us feel like we've done something.... Alright guys I guess it looks like the bridges are ready. Let's get some silence in the room."
Since it began 20 years ago as a scholarship program for Alaska Natives seeking degrees in engineering and science, ANSEP has a track record of success. The middle school program, which is only six years old, is still in the early stages of collecting data but already has a few success stories to tell, including one of a student who has just turned 18 and has already entered the University of Alaska Civil Engineering program with enough credits to skip his freshman year.