Ruth Fyfe Elementary Math Night

Written By: Mae Javier

​​It’s back to school for Las Vegas YMF—back to Ruth Fyfe Elementary School! Las Vegas YMF collaborated with NSPE to once again participate in the Ruth Fyfe Elementary School Math/Science/Literary Night where students and their parents could enjoy different types of educational activities. The night kicked off with a Dream BIG video showing what engineering is about. After the exciting video, the attendees dispersed to different stations. Las Vegas YMF offered three stations: toothpick tower/bridge building, foil boats, and Pop Fly. In the Toothpick bridge building station, students were able to build a tower and/or bridge using toothpicks and marshmallows. There was also a neat challenge where students could build a bridge over a ~12” gap to connect the two tables. The foil boat activity was taken from the Dream Big website, and it was a great way to teach the students buoyancy and weight distribution. Students were able to build their boats out of pre-cut aluminum foil and their boats were tested by the number of pennies it can hold.

​The designs the students came up with were interesting, and it was fascinating that they knew instinctively to distribute the weight the weight of the pennies throughout their boats. The third station featured one of the activities of NSPE Stem Outreach—Pop Fly. In this station, students were able to learn about levers by building a ping pong launcher out of paint stirrers, duct tape, and wooden spool. Overall, it was a very fun event and very rewarding to see the smile in the students’ faces as they participate in these educational activities. Las Vegas YMF is looking forward to participate again next year and inspire future engineers!