Loudoun County Public High Schools

Workshop Descriptions for
Science, Technology & Engineering Day

Friday, February 22, 2008, 9:00 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.
(Snowdate: Tuesday, February 26, 2008)

A-Mazing Robotics Workshop

A-Mazing robotics is actually a hands-on lab that explores the world of simple robotics using LEGOs. Workshop participants will build their own robots and explore how the robot functions. Each student will program his or her own robot to navigate through a maze and perform other functions. Students will have the opportunity to see how electrical engineering, computer science, and mechanical engineering all come together to produce a robot that does what we want it to do!

Analyze Accidents, Digitize a Crash Test Dummy

Participate in a crash analysis progression from scanning a crash test dummy to managing a car crash simulation and analyzing the results. Choose the test dummy, the make of car, and the type of accident, then watch the simulation and learn about vehicle crashworthiness and the effects of the accident on occupants, vehicles, or roadside hardware. Working with the Federal Highway Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, GW’s National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC) created the open source vehicle computer models now available. Today more than 20 of these models are the industry standard for automotive testing. The Vehicle Modeling Lab is scanning a series of biomechanical dummies for crash testing that will also become the industry standard. The analysis of these crash tests provides critical information that is applied to issues in child safety and restraint systems, vehicle-to-vehicle compatibility, airbag system performance, and impact injury patterns for automotive industry improvements and to government agencies charged with ensuring public safety.

Build Bridges to Your Future

Put on your hard-hats, and have some fun and hands-on experience building this modular steel bridge with your own team! Learn about planning and coordinating a project and working in teams like civil engineers. Students in civil engineering at GW participate in the regional and national Steel Bridge Competition. Each year, students develop a novel steel bridge that is designed to span 20 feet and hold 2,500 pounds on center. The bridge you will work with was modeled after a GW student design that was awarded in last year’s regional competition based on the requirements of actual steel bridge construction.

Crisis Simulation—Management and Victim Assistance

When a natural disaster or act of violence occurs, life saving decisions have to be made in a split second. Would you make the right decisions? Put yourself in the place of emergency management specialists and medical personal when the initial decisions made during a crisis can make the difference in one life or hundreds of lives. Participants will work with “METI ® Mannequin,” a $250,000, technological marvel of computer driven responses. Used as a training device, the mannequin exhibits programmed responses to identified stimuli when prompted by the computer. Type in the chemical or biological agent and the mannequin reacts with recognizable symptoms. Then, determine which medication is appropriate to save his life. This workshop tests your critical thinking skills and ability to respond during a crisis—natural or manmade—through simulated exercises that challenge your decision-making skills.

Design and Build Electrical Circuits

One job of electrical engineers is to design and build electrical circuits that serve a variety of purposes, like controlling signals that produce lights and sounds. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to read an electrical circuit schematic diagram and build your own battery-powered electrical circuit with light emitting diodes (LEDs). Learn how to vary the flashing speed of the LEDs and how to “debug” your circuit if it does not work according to specifications. At the end of the project, you can keep the schematic, circuit board, and components and re-build the circuit at home.

Drowsy Drivers— Wake Up and Stay Sharp!

Test your reflexes in a car or a truck—but not on the road—as a computer model places unexpected road hazards in your path. Recent research has discovered how to detect when drivers are falling asleep at the wheel. You will be surprised at the results. The Center for Intelligent Systems Research (CISR) operates the Driving Simulator Laboratories with a primary goal of crash and collision avoidance. Faculty conduct vehicle and driving behavior research in the labs—a safe and controlled setting. New CISR research in Intelligent Speed Adaptation also provides effective warning for drivers when speeding and approaching hazardous situations such as intersections and work zones.

Exploring Career Paths

So, are you going to be a rocket scientist or build magnificent bridges? Work in homeland security or invent a life-saving device? While some of you may have decided on a career path, others might still be searching for that one thing that strikes a spark... igniting their future studies and career. Perhaps you found that in a workshop today. The Career Path workshop offers the opportunity to discuss your interests and workshop experiences today with corporate representatives from a dozen science, technology, medical, and engineering organizations and firms. These are the global companies, like Lockheed Martin, Rehau, or Oracle, that have pushed the leading edge through the last decade—you are their skilled workforce of the future. Explore the different ways that relationship might work.

Pharmacogenomics…the Key to Personalized Medicine

Typically, people are treated for disease using medications and drug doses that are the same for all individuals. Today, that is changing. Pharmacogenomics is the future of personalized health care where physicians will be able to tailor a medication therapy to the needs of an individual based on their specific genetic makeup. By participating in this workshop, students will gain hands-on experience manipulating and analyzing DNA and will gain a better understanding of the basic techniques used in DNA fingerprinting, sequencing and genetic analysis. You will work with real data from actual patient studies demonstrating how genetics determines an individual’s response to medication, and how the same genetic techniques shown on popular TV shows such as CSI are being used in the medical field to improve patient care. This workshop is highly recommended for students interested in pursuing a career in the biological sciences, medicine, or pharmacy.

Play Zero Hour: America's Medic—A Medical Simulation Game

Serious games are a genre of games built with the same technology and design principles as games for entertainment, but serve other purposes. In this workshop, each student will have the opportunity to play the role of an Emergency Medical Service provider responding to disasters such as chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive events. At different points in the game you will assume the roles of Incident Commander, Triage Personnel, and Treatment Personnel. All implemented game content will be available to play. The GW Computer Science Department and the Department of Homeland Security Policy Institute’s National Emergency Medical Services Preparedness Initiative (NEMSPI) are developing Zero Hour: America’s Medic, a serious game that will be an educational tool for first responders to large scale incidents that could involve mass casualties.

Science of Accident Investigation: The NTSB and TWA Flight 800

In July 1996, TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747 bound for Paris, exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the Long Island coast shortly after taking off from NY’s Kennedy International Airport. All 230 people on board were killed. Early reports of the crash speculated that the plane was destroyed by a missle or a bomb. Was the crash due to a major structural failure? Could a design flaw have contributed to the accident? The incident turned into the most intensive and complex crash investigation in civil aviation history. Today, the 93-foot reconstruction of the TWA 800 fuselage is used for training purposes at the NTSB Training Center located on the GW Virginia Campus. In this workshop, you will see scientific research and techniques applied to aviation accident investigations using TWA Flight 800 as a case study. Follow the fact-finding process and review the final analysis of the results.

Track Hackers through a Maze of Networks

The field of information security changes daily – and so does the exciting job of tracking the hackers in any organization. Hackers are constantly devising new means to attack computers—in 2007 creating an average of 35,350 worms, viruses, and Trojan horses a month worldwide. How does a security engineer learn about new attacks before they happen and protect their computers before an attacker gets into the system? This workshop will take you through a hacking exercise and teach you how to protect your systems.

When the Earth Moves: Designing Resistance to Earthquakes

Students will form teams and construct their own building models following different specifications and, using the shake table, experience first hand the impact of earthquakes on different types of buildings. Learn how structural engineers use innovative concepts of analysis, construction, and testing methods to further enhance the resistance of buildings and bridges against earthquakes. This is the type of research conducted in the shake table lab at the George Washington University Virginia Campus. This shake table is one of the largest six–degrees–of–freedom tables in the country, and one of only six with this degree of movement. Beneath the shake table is a huge mass of concrete weighing about 340,000 lbs (or 170 tons) and reaching a depth of 25–30 feet. Eighteen H–shaped steel piles connect this concrete to the earth’s bedrock to stabilize the table and prevent its motion from being transferred to the building. Funded by GW and the National Science Foundation, the shake table was built into a special annex in Research 1 in 2000.

Wireless Wonders

Mobile communication, especially the cell phone, is a defining technology of this and following centuries. Transmission of video, voice and data is increasingly important for both personal and business reasons. Some basic questions about wireless communications will be addressed in this workshop. What are analog signals and how are they turned into digital signals for transmission? How can low-power radio waves carry information and be transmitted and received by antennas? What about all the wireless protocols, such as CDMA, GSM, WiMax, WiFi, BlueTooth and ZigBee? These protocols, which are like different languages, will be described and compared. You will be able to examine the inside of cell phones and other modern wireless hardware. You will see a chip about one-quarter of an inch square, which includes both a microcomputer and a two-way radio station. A wireless pill that broadcasts images from the intestinal tract will be described, and a full scale model shown. In the end, you could appreciate the fact that wireless communication is challenging and exciting, as well as critically important.