February 19th kicked off the start of National Engineers Week with a day full of events and fun at the Peoria Riverfront Museum for Engineers Day! Engineering activities such as Tech Talks, demonstrations, and a scavenger hunt all took place throughout the museum and were conducted by local engineering groups. Free admission to the museum was sponsored by Maurer-Stutz, Inc., various local engineering companies, engineering societies including ASCE and American Society of Materials, and Caterpillar. As a bonus this year, the Caterpillar Visitor Center located next door to the museum was also open and offered free admission as well. A total of 1,988 people visited Engineers Day on Sunday, one of the highest attendance records at the museum.
MSI’s very own Keith Plavec and Curtis Lynn helped organize and oversee the 31st Annual ASCE Index Card Bridge Contest. Logan Donley, a current Bradley student, also assisted with the bridge competition and will be one of MSI’s summer interns. The competition included twenty-five teams from eight different schools and Keith served as the event emcee. Additionally, engineering firms, engineering and science societies, science related industries, and local code and robotics groups hosted interactive engineering activities throughout the upper and lower levels of the museum. Gayle Baker from Maurer-Stutz hosted a booth that explored buoyancy. Participants were able to build their own boat out of aluminum foil and test the structure and stability of their creation by placing coins in their boat and seeing how much weight the boat can carry before it sank.
It was a wonderful day kicking off the start of National Engineers Week and an excellent opportunity to visit both the Peoria Riverfront Museum and the Caterpillar Visitor Center and allow children and families to explore and participate in a variety of hands-on activities centered around engineering!
