The Quarterdeck Honorary Society at the University of Michigan is an organization dedicated to providing service to the NA&ME Department at UM as well as to the field of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering in general. Quarterdeck is a division of the UM Student Section of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME). All Quarterdeck members are registered members of SNAME.
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DAPCEP program
March 31, 2012
The DAPCEP program is a program that invites eighth grade students from the Detroit area schools and offers them a five week crash course in engineering. This year the Naval Architecture department hosted thirteen “pirates” for every one of the five Saturdays in March. The program is run through the Center for Engineering, Diversity and Outreach at the University of Michigan.
The focus of this year’s DAPCEP program was to teach the students, “What is engineering?” The first Saturday consisted of doing a “What is Engineering,” mini seminar. Here the students were taught the Engineering Design Process. This is modeled as a five step circular process that surrounds the Goal. The first step was the ‘Ask’ step, followed by ‘Imagine,’ ‘Plan,’ ‘Create,’ ‘Improve.’ The second week the students had an introduction to hydrostatics. They were introduced to various examples of sailboats, and practiced brainstorming, designing and budgeting. The third week the students divided up into four groups. They began building their sailboats (out of water bottles, popsicle sticks etc) keeping in mind the hydrostatic information they learned from prior weeks. Teamwork was essential to the success of the project. The students learned quickly that they needed to utilize every member of their team so they could efficiently build their sailboat with the least amount of supplies and within the allotted time. The fourth week the students took a field trip to the Marine Hydrodynamics Lab located on UM’s central campus. They got a tour of the hydrodynamics lab and got educated on why the Naval Architecture field is not only fun, but also a smart career choice. One of their favorite parts was the ‘roller coaster’ ride on the carriage in the towing tank. After the tour, the sailboat races took place in the tank. Two out of the four sailboats tipped which sparked excellent discussion on why that could have happened. The final week, the students set up their poster board’s about the design of their sailboats on the Engineering North Campus. Here they presented their designs to their parents, and then again in front of all of the DAPCEP students.
The program was a fun way for young students in the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering department at UM to be able to showcase some of their skills they have learned so far. Not only was it educational for the kids, but it was enjoyable for the volunteers to see them develop their skills over the five weeks. One of the most humbling parts was how quickly they learned terms that most of the Naval Architecture students had not learned until college. With the knowledge from these few weeks of exposure, the hope is to see young Naval Architects and Marine Engineers to continue to explore and get excited about this field, even if that excitement begins with a little plastic sailboat.
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