Future engineers shine during GEAR UP summer camp

Sixteen area high school students closed out their GEAR UP summer engineering camp at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette campus with a bang—or with a loud clattering and a cloud of gravel dust, anyway.

The juniors and seniors, divided into four teams, watched anxiously to see just how much limestone the foamcore retaining walls they had spent the previous three days meticulously constructing would hold back before giving way. It turns out that the structures could retain a lot—about six tons.

The retaining wall contest was the centerpiece of the camp, hosted by UL Lafayette and GEAR UP, an acronym for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. It was designed to get teens to learn basic engineering principals and then put them into practice in a fun and exciting way, with an element of competition to amp up the exercise.

The summer camp is the brainchild of Dr. Chris Carroll, a UL Lafayette civil engineering professor, who has been part of GEAR UP since its second year. The federally funded program has been tracking a group of about 2,000 Lafayette-area students since 2008. It has been following the same group since middle school, encouraging and preparing them for college along the way.

Another highlight of the camp was an intricate scavenger hunt based on solving math problems. The students spent their mornings clutching their smart phones, which have calculator functions. They computed and scribbled their way through elaborate equations to reveal coordinates on campus where clues to prizes were located, and the numbers needed to open combination locks that protected the clues and prizes.

“You should’ve seen them stretching out afterwards—trying to get the muscle cramps out,” Carroll chuckled, noting that the students ran full tilt to recover each clue, leaping over benches and anything else in their path, trying to best opposing teams.

Carroll will share stories about his work with the Lafayette students when he presents “Bridging the Gap Between STEM Curriculum and Extracurricular Projects” at a national GEAR UP conference in San Francisco next month. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The term is typically used to emphasize the need to improve the nation’s competitiveness in technology development.

Visit www.lpssGEARUP.com to learn more about the GEAR UP Program.

Photo info: High school students scrambled to solve algebraic equations that would provide numbers needed to locate scavenger hunt clues and then open combination locks that secured them. Shown in the foreground, from left, are Tyler Gagnard and Hugh Leger IV, who attend Acadiana High School. Collin Simpson of Thibodaux High School is in the background.