Volunteer engineers from General Motors visited fourth grade classrooms at Pine Knob Elementary on Jan 13. as part of the six-week program, ‘A World in Motion.?
The program, sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers has been around for over a decade, but 2006 is the first time PKE students have participated.
The students began their workshop sessions on Jan. 6 and will continue into February. After learning some of the basic idea of engineering, they were given the assignment of designing and building a new toy ship. The students spent the afternoon like ‘MacGyver,? taking a slip of paper, tape, a paperclip, drinking straw and note card and turning them into a prototype for their ships.
Every Friday, the engineers visit several classrooms at PKE to help oversee their projects. Students are broken up into teams of three, with each student being made an honorary project, facility or test engineer.
Besides being fun, the project is geared towards helping students build an interest in the math and science that go into engineering projects.

Look in a future issue of The Clarkston News for more photos of the projects as they advance.