KENTON, Ohio (WLIO) - It was a special day inside Kenton Elementary School! On Tuesday morning, the Ohio Northern University Baja Team, which is comprised of ONU engineering or construction students who design and build off-road cross kart vehicles for driving competitions, made a trip from Ada to spend time with Kenton third graders teaching fun science lessons.
"With the kids, we're giving them these little wooden kits with little wooden cars and ramps and stuff and some obstacles, and so, we're trying to teach them the difference between potential energy and kinetic energy," says Isaiah Mikesell, Ohio Northern University Baja Team.
With inspiration to the fairy tale "The Three Little Pigs," the kids performed trials with their cars, adjusting ramp height and car weights, to see how far their cars go and try to knock down the Big Bad Wolf.
"We're like sliding cars down ramps and seeing how far they go," says Emma Reed, Kenton 3rd Grade Student.
"We're sliding cars down ramps and seeing how, like, far blocks will go if the energy slows down or if it goes up," says Colton Beazley, Kenton 3rd Grade Student.
For donating their time into the school, the ONU Baja Team receives grant money from the Society of Automotive Engineers, SAE, Foundation's LearnTwice program, helping the team pay for competition expenses.
"It's about $2,000 per race to register our team so by being a part of this LearnTwice program, we're able to receive funding from SAE to help reimburse that registration cost and help us get to those races," says Aiden Shilliday, Ohio Northern University Baja Team.
But in the end of the day, both Mikesell and Shilliday, along with Kenton Elementary teachers, say Tuesday’s STEM activity has a major impact on the third graders.
"They help the kids walk through those steps, and they can, towards the end, they get really creative and can expand upon their ideas," Amy Mikesell, 3rd Grade Teacher, Kenton Elementary School.
"We were there once too, and we were once playing with Legos and playing with little wooden cars... and to get to see the young imaginations and young minds to find their creativity and 'Ooo, can we make a jump? Ooo, can we make a loop-de-loop?'" says Mikesell.
"Being able to teach some of these types of Physics and systems, it's the building blocks of what I'm learning right now and being able to inspire them and teach them these things, you know, teach them they also, one day, can become engineers, become construction management majors," says Shilliday.
The ONU Baja Team will be racing June 10th through the 14th in Upstate New York and again in September right here in Ohio.
