REHAMS Camp Provides High School Students with Hands-On Experience, New Skills
June 26, 2015 | LSU Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering
Forty high school students built underwater robots, toured local industries and learned
about life as an engineer as part of the LSU College of Engineering’s Recruiting into
Engineering High Ability Multicultural Students, or REHAMS, summer camp.
The camp, held June 14 through June 20, provided selected students a week of hands-on
activities designed to further explore their interest in engineering, construction
management and computer science, to build applicable skill sets and to learn from
LSU faculty, students and industry professionals. It also gave participants the opportunity
to live on campus and experience life as an LSU Tiger. This year, 27 boys and 13 girls
from four states attended.
“Overall, I was very pleased with every component of the camp,” said Terrica Jamison,
the College’s assistant recruitment manager and the camp organizer. "This was one
of the most academically engaged and well-behaved student groups we’ve had in the
last few years."
Among the many camp activities—which included a tour of the Shell refinery, a team-building
exercise at the University Recreation Center ropes challenge course, a series of engineering-focused
workshops and the like—one of the most popular events was the underwater robotics
competition.
At the start of the camp, students learned about engineering design in a lesson taught
by Eric Turgeau, a biology and robotics teacher at Walker High School. They were then
divided into teams and provided conventional and nonconventional materials to construct
the bots over the course of the week. (Think: everything from PVC pipe and battery
packs to kitchen spatulas and fuzzy pipe cleaners). At the end of the week, the student
teams created a poster outlining their design process, presented it before their peers
and competed to see which team’s robots could successfully fetch pool rings and batons
underwater.
“The competition was so amazing to the students,” Jamison said, “especially the ones
who had never participated in a robotics competition.”
Another highlight, Jamison said, was watching the students explore the various fields
of engineering and get excited about what they were learning. Some students discovered
totally new interests and skills, she said, while others further pursued existing
passions.
“During the civil engineering program, one of the labs they showed us had a driving
simulator that allowed us to drive a real car in a virtual world,” said Katie Gonsoulin,
a rising senior at the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts in Natchitoches.
“After seeing the driving simulation, having the opportunity to interact with it and
understanding how it collects data, I became really excited about potentially majoring
in civil engineering or computer science.”
That excitement is the whole reason REHAMS exists, Jamison said, noting the camp is
the “first step in pursuing a thriving engineering career.”
“We wanted to make sure this was the best REHAMS camp ever,” she said. “From the feedback
I’ve received from parents, professors and students, we succeeded.”
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For a gallery of photos from the camp, visit the College Facebook page at www.facebook.com/lsuengineering.