Last Friday on January 20th, the Center for STEM Education welcomed Milton Highschool to Northeastern University. The goal was to exposure these high school students to the college experience at Northeastern, all while learning more about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
The day started off with an exciting engineering project, where groups of students competed to create the tallest free-standing spaghetti tower that could support a marshmallow on top. With many groups failing to get their towers to even stand, the winner of the challenge ended up 26 inches off the ground. The students were able to learn a lot about the engineering design process, iterative prototyping, and teamwork!
![Four Teachers working together to build a spaghetti tower](https://stem.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/IMG_4258-300x225.jpg)
Milton Highschool Teachers team up to build their own spaghetti tower.
![Four Milton Students standing in front of their spaghetti tower](https://stem.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/IMG_4283-300x225.jpg)
Winners of the Spaghetti Tower Competition!
![Four students working on their spaghetti tower.](https://stem.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/IMG_4253-300x225.jpg)
Students strike a pose while working to build a standing tower.
Afterwards, Milton Highschool split up into three groups to tour the campus and learn a little more about some great opportunities at Northeastern. First stop was to the Eno Ebong Lab at the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex (ISEC), where the students met Ronodeep Mitra, a PHD student at Northeastern. At the Eno Ebong Lab, Mitra shared more about the ongoing projects in the labs and how his team was working to tackle cardiovascular disease.
![Students gather around Ronodeep Mitra](https://stem.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/IMG_4285-300x225.jpg)
Students gather around to heard more about the experiment
![Screen showing slices of mice brain](https://stem.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/IMG_9930-225x300.jpg)
Mitra shows off the technology in the lab that shows slices of mice brain!
Next stop was the First Year Engineering Learning and Innovation Center (FYELIC) in Snell Engineering, where Professor Love showed off the cool in-house makerspace on campus. From the laser cutters to the 3D printers, Milton Highschool students were able to learn more about all of the fun and exciting projects that have been completed there.
![Students pose in front of an array of 3D printed projects.](https://stem.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/IMG_9947-300x225.jpg)
Students pose in front of an array of 3D printed projects.
![Students gathered around Professor Love](https://stem.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/IMG_4291-300x225.jpg)
Professor Love talks about the 3D printers available at the FYELIC
![Ben and Ryan discuss about their Projects to a group of students](https://stem.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/IMG_4299-300x225.jpg)
Students listen closely as Ben and Ryan talk more about the Generate Projects.
Lastly, the Milton Highschool students arrived at the Sherman Center to hear Northeastern students, Ben and Ryan, talk about their experience in Notheastern’s Product Development Studio – Generate. Here, the students were able to see real products that the Generate team have produced for actual companies! From the machinery at Hot Date Kitchen’s to a Hockey Puck Launcher, the students were amazed by the work Generate have been able to contribute to real companies.
After the tour, the students headed towards the Curry Student Center to grab some lunch just in time for the College 101 panel. While the students ate, Northeastern College Students discussed more about their educational and co-op experience at Northeastern University. Milton Highschool students were also able to ask any college-related questions they had to learn more about their interests.
![Professor Kaeli discuss about Computing Pi with PArallel Computing](https://stem.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023-01-20-12.37.58-300x169.jpg)
Professor Kaeli shares how to compute Pi with Parallel Computing
![Students listen in to the College 101 Panel](https://stem.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/Attach0-300x225.jpg)
Milton Highschool students ask questions to learn more about the college experience.
We then ended off the day with Professor Kaeli, who taught all the students how to compute Pi with Parallel Computing. Using Linux, students were able to stimulate throwing darts onto a circular target to see the probability of landing in the circle equaled to Pi. This is where they discovered that randomness is never truly random!
Thank you to Milton Highschool for making the day possible!