Media cover STEM challenges at UMaine Composites Center
The Bangor Daily News, WABI (Channel 5), WLBZ (Channel 2), Mainebiz and ENR (Engineering News-Record) reported on two STEM challenges that were held at the University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Center on May 20. Around 300 middle and high school students from around the state took part in the Windstorm Challenge and the 8th annual Maine Wind Blade Challenge. Members of the winning teams in each challenge will be offered paid internships at the UMaine Composites Center if they enroll at UMaine, according to the BDN. “This has kind of opened my eyes to what I could do in the future,” Sage Dubay, a Caribou Middle School student told WABI. The Windstorm Challenge includes a turbine platform competition while the Maine Wind Blade Challenge brings together teams of students with composites companies to construct functional sets of wind blades. For the first time, both challenges were held under the same roof, at the new Harold Alfond W2 Ocean Engineering Lab. “We’re confident that some of the best future engineers, scientists and entrepreneurial leaders were here today, and our goal is to inspire them with opportunities in our state,” Habib Dagher, executive director of the UMaine Composites Center, told the BDN. A team from Falmouth High School won the Windstorm Challenge and students from Bangor High School won the Maine Wind Blade Challenge, according to JEC Composites and CompositesWorld.