Trojans build drone, win award
The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Club won the Design Award for its impressive drone model at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo SWE Challenge on Feb. 21.
The Society of Women Engineers is a club at CVHS that welcomes those who are interested in pursuing careers in engineering, led by club advisor and engineering teacher Jessica Porter.
“I enjoy the community in SWE as we generally all don’t pressure each other, and especially during our trip to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, we connect as friends and not just as fellow club members,” said Ella Stahl-Rhodes, the SWE treasurer.
Every year, SWE members go to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, which has one of the best engineering programs in California, for a tour and a contest to showcase their engineering skills.
This year, SWE decided to design a drone prototype inspired by flight, so members built one that specializes in delivering medical supplies, hence the stack of Band-Aids inside. Much of the drone is built from purchased parts, but its base was 3D-printed in the room across the hallway, showcasing their impressive ability to turn their ideas into reality.
“The two most difficult parts of making the drone were obtaining the necessary parts and soldering the connections,” said SWE President Tulasi Venkatesh. “Once we finalized all the necessary parts, we ordered them, but some of the parts took weeks to arrive, and we worried that the parts would not arrive by the day of the design challenge presentation. Luckily, all of the necessary parts arrived on time.”
It cannot fly yet, but members say their next project is to turn it from a prototype into a final project that can successfully fly and deliver medical supplies.
“I love bringing more people, particularly girls, into engineering and technology! I especially enjoy outreach events, where we introduce younger students to engineering. Watching the excitement on their faces as they discover a concept or solve a problem is really amazing,” said Venkatesh.
SWE is an impressive yet small club that shows us what we need more of in the world: women in STEM and women in engineering. Many girls and women interested in engineering often find themselves alone or in the minority in their engineering classes, outnumbered by the larger male population. SWE is not excluding them, but they are proud of fostering their small community, which we can surely imagine will only grow from here.