College announces winners of annual Jr. Expo

Like most events this year, the UH College of Engineering’s annual Junior Expo was held virtually. Although the field was a lot smaller than in previous years due to COVID-19, the students were as brilliant and competitive as ever, with a few competitions undecided until the final seconds. On April 9th, teams from Kamehameha Middle School, Kapōlei Middle School, and Moanalua Middle School were represented and went head-to-head in a variety of challenges.

Instead of students gathering in person on-campus this year, teachers dropped off their students’ projects to be judged/tested by a panel of engineering professionals.

The Hawai’i chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers hosted the always popular Popsicle Bridge Building Contest. Kamehameha’s bridge won the “Highest Efficiency Ratio – Highest load carrying-to-weight ratio” portion of the competition, not giving out until a whopping 289 lbs. was placed on it, while Kapōlei impressively won both the “Best Oral Presentation” and “Best As-Built Drawings” portions.

Meanwhile, the UH chapter of Chi Epsilon hosted the Model Paper Column Competition. This involved using two 24 weight pieces of paper to create a column. The column that could be loaded with the most weight won. Moanalua threatened to sweep the podium on this one until Kapōlei swooped in to take the third spot.

Finally, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers hosted the aptly named “Most Creative Maze Game” in which students used scratch coding to create a maze and were judged on creativity. This one came down to the wire, with Kapōlei just barely inching out Moanalua for first place.

This highly effective and enjoyable collaboration between ASCE Hawai’i and the UH College of Engineering was produced by Jillian Sumitomo, Quinn Bianchi-Lawson, and Creselle Morales.