Eagles Use After-School Outreach to Help Get Elementary School Students Excited About STEM

Arden Egle and Ayla Ghaffarian decorate their balloon-powered car and make final adjustments prior to testing at Cypress Creek Elementary School
Arden Egle and Ayla Ghaffarian decorate their balloon-powered car and make final adjustments prior to testing at Cypress Creek Elementary School. (Photo by Zach Fedewa/Port Orange Observer)

Mike Cavaliere photoMike Cavaliere /

Feb 04, 2019, 3:50 PM

For the second year in a row, Embry-Riddle’s David Spitzer reported, “The university’s Formula SAE (student automotive engineering) team this year conducted a program with the after-school STEM superstar Michelle Phelan at Cypress Creek Elementary School.”

Spitzer, an Embry-Riddle staff research engineer, described the effort as “a chance for Embry-Riddle undergraduates to teach engineering to elementary kids in grades 2 through 5, using an SAE balloon-powered car program as the curriculum.”

Embry-Riddle’s collaboration with Phelan, a fifth-grade teacher at Cypress Elementary and head of the Steam4kidztech club, was featured in thePort Orange Observer.

Embry-Riddle students who took part in the activities at Cypress Elementary included James "Dillon" Robinson, a mechanical engineering major, Tony Lui, from aerospace engineering, and J.T. McGill, from mechanical engineering. They helped students grasp physics concepts, such as aerodynamics, velocity and force of motion, by leading hands-on activities and group discussions. Through efforts like these, Cypress Elementary has seen the popularity of the Steam4kidztech club grow.

“It’s becoming the place everyone wants to be,” Phelan said.

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