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The University of New Mexico

NEWS RELEASE



Media Contact : Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627
kwent2@unm.edu

March 19, 2007

UNM Trains Fifth Graders in Engineering Challenge
Students create balloon-powered toy cars

UNM students from Mechanical Engineering’s Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) race car design class are showing two fifth grade classes at Monte Vista Elementary school how to build balloon-powered toy cars. The goal of the class is to use an engineering problem-solving process to respond to a request from a fictitious toy company to create an appealing toy that travels far, carries weight or goes fast. For the final class, the fifth-graders will demonstrate their working model, present their test data, and explain why they designed the car the way they did. This event is on Tuesday March 20, 2007, at Monte Vista Elementary in building P-6 at 12:45 p.m.

The 3-week class taught by the UNM mechanical engineering students involves using a problem-solving process employed by engineers in design teams and taught at many engineering schools across the country. The student teams explore the principles of jet propulsion, friction and air resistance, and experiment with different chassis designs and nozzle sizes to determine their effect on the balloon-car performance. Certificates of achievement will be given to those teams who most closely met the requirements they set.

The project is part of larger program, “A World in Motion,” that was developed by the Society of Automotive Engineers. The various projects are usually taught by elementary school teachers in grades 4-8 with engineers as consultants. The UNM School of Engineering team is the first to actually instruct the fifth graders. Last week, the Monte Vista Elementary students visited the mechanical engineering laboratories, where they learned how students from the UNM Mechanical Engineering Department’s Formula SAE Team develop, design, test, analyze and then drive a formula-style race car. The UNM students participate in an international formula race car competition every year and have finished as high as 14 th in a field of 140.

The University of New Mexico is the state's largest university, serving more than 32,000 students. UNM is home to the state's only schools of law, medicine, pharmacy and architecture and operates New Mexico's only academic health center. UNM is noted for comprehensive undergraduate programs and research that benefits the state and the nation.

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