By Jordan Rossen
On Feb. 15, more than 100 West High students from engineering program Project Lead the Way attended Engineering Day, a conference hosted by Kirkwood Community College.
The conference is held annually at The Hotel at Kirkwood Center. This year over 500 students from six different high schools attended.
At the conference, the students had the opportunity to attend different talks on a variety of engineering topics. After the talks concluded some of the students and faculty were given a tour of the Kirkwood engineering facilities.
“My favorite part was going inside their wind turbine. Seeing their laser and waterjet cutters was pretty cool too,” said Dominic Audia, the West High Principles of Engineering teacher.
Representatives of the Kirkwood, University of Iowa, University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University engineering programs all attended as well as representatives of engineering firms such as Rockwell Collins and National Instruments.
While many students were attracted by the chance to get an inside perspective on the engineering industry, some students were motivated by less academic goals.
“The free stuff was pretty cool,” said Principles of Engineering student Max Leavesseur ’14, “but I was really just in it for the free lunch.”