Written by: Emily Walters
In order to inspire the local children of Blacksburg, the Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team of Virginia Tech (HEVT) worked with the Children’s Museum of Blacksburg to host the first Master Builders event. Earlier this month, children and families came to the museum to work with HEVT engineers to build “car parts” out of various materials like Duplos, Lincoln Logs, an Imagination Playground and toy gears.
The HEVT team members worked with the children to talk through what they wanted to build and helped them with some of the smaller, trickier materials (sometimes those Lincoln Logs just do not want to stack!). Many children ended up just working with the team members to create their own machines or toys, and the team is happy with how successful the event was.
The main goal of the event was to inspire local youth to think about the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) field and employ those thinking skills to build something new. After building with HEVT members, the children became certified “Master Builders” and were invited to take a photo with their “license to build.” The HEVT members were very excited to be taking photos with the license too! The HEVT engineering team members had a lot of fun working with the children and certainly did not mind getting the chance to build with these materials either.
The team loved working with this future generation of potential engineers and hopes to hold more Master Builders events with the local community in the future. Check out some photos from the event below:
