Discover Engineering connects community with STEM and engineering careers

Lamar University's College of Engineering hosted its annual Discover Engineering event on Saturday, April 11. With the College of Engineering celebrating 75 Years at Lamar University, this year’s event was the biggest one yet. 

The community event, which was free to the public, encouraged kids to get excited about STEM careers. The event was held at the Spindletop Boomtown Museum, and the museum was open to attendees.

“Engineering plays such a vital role in the oil industry and directly connects to our museum, so we were really excited to partner with Lamar Engineering for Discover Engineering,” Lily Norman, program coordinator for Spindletop Boomtown Museum said. “Everyone at Spindletop was so thrilled to see the amazing turnout and to get to showcase our museum. We hope everyone learned a little something about how important STEM is to the industry that created our city.”

The event featured a variety of hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) activities, including building College of Engineering fruit snack DNA models, participating in an egg drop challenge, constructing straw bridges, creating lava lamp bottles and slime, testing vertical jumps, exploring the engineering of pancakes, and visiting a robot petting zoo. Activities were hosted by current student organizations, Lamar University departments, and local industry partners.

"It was so much fun to see the kids enjoy learning about DNA with our candy DNA model,” Nehemias Dominguez, Biomedical Engineering Club president said. “It was exciting to see kids get excited about engineering and sub-sections of engineering, like biomedical engineering. Even the parents were interested, and I feel like everyone learned something they might not have known before.”

With help from local industry sponsors, Discover Engineering remains a free event for the public. The Blueprint Premier Sponsor, Fish-O-Rama, helped fund T-shirts, prizes, and more. Innovator platinum sponsors for the event included

“Supporting STEM education is part of who we are as a company,” ExxonMobil Beaumont Public & Government Affairs Advisor Tyler Gustafson said. “We want to open the doors of STEM education and close the learning gap, refilling the STEM pipeline with the best and brightest engineers and scientists. Events like this help local students find their passion early on, and we’re grateful to be a part of their journey toward meaningful careers in STEM.”

Discover Engineering also had a devoted area with door prizes, pizza, and special giveaways for Lamar University alumni.

“It was great to see everyone enjoying all that the alumni room had to offer,” Elizabeth Drago, senior Lamar University Ambassador said. “Being able to visit with the alumni and their families was a great experience as a soon-to-be alumnus.”

To celebrate Lamar University’s College of Engineering 75 Year anniversary, 75 door prizes were raffled off to students who attended. They were able to take some of the STEM activities home with them through prizes such as stem kits, Legos, building blocks, chemistry sets, robot kits, and more.

“Our Neches crew had a blast bringing financial literacy to life with an engaging, hands-on spin wheel activity focused on budgeting," Charlee Fitzgerald, community impact supervisor from Neches Federal Credit Union said. “It’s a great way to give back to our community while helping future innovators build smart financial habits.”

After being held for more than a decade, Discover Engineering has touched the lives of many students thanks to the dedication of the College of Engineering’s staff, students, and sponsors. The College of Engineering hopes to inspire students from kindergarten to high school to become the next generation of engineering students and professional engineers.

For more information about the College of Engineering outreach programs, visit lamar.edu/futureengineer.