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4-H'ers expand skills by trying scientific ideas
By Bridget Flynn
bflynn@pantagraph.com
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NORMAL — Grant Donovan is ahead of most college applicants.

At age 13, he knows that he wants to attend the University of Illinois and to be an engineer.

As part of his application, he might use the solar-powered model car he constructed Saturday at the 4-H Technology Academy at Heartland Community College.

The annual event, in its sixth year, used to be known as the Electricity School, but it had to be renamed when robotics, computers and other technologies were introduced to the workshops for children ages 8 and older. The event was co-sponsored by the University of Illinois Extension program.

Extension educator Curt Sinclair helped Donovan and other attendees construct their model cars using solar cells, plastic foam building insulation and compact discs as wheels.

Noting that “gas is getting really expensive,” Sinclair mused about the future of automobiles and the role of today’s youths in them. “These are the ages of kids who will be engineers, who will do the actual design of the cars that are going to be used in the next decade,” he said.

Donovan said his model car was based on a tripod robot that he designed. He frequently builds robots of Lego building blocks and sketches potential inventions on graph paper. What excites him most about inventing is “knowing that your invention will help someone.”

Donovan used multiple CDs lined up together to form each wheel.

“If two of the center wheels get hit with a stone, the other ones will stay down,” he explained. “It’s kind of like a shock system.”

His father helps him with science fair projects, but Donovan gives some credit to his mother for his projects.

“If you ask me where my creativity comes from, it’s my mom and grandpa,” he said.

“They’re great kids,” said Theresa Chambers, Extension’s 4-H community worker, of the 115 attendees. “They’re into this. They don’t want to leave their workshops.”

After the attendees did leave their workshops at Heartland’s Workforce Development Center, Chris Grotba, superintendent of the McLean County 4-H farm electricity project area, demonstrated for all participants how to make lightning with a device called a Tesla coil.

Grotba first demonstrated the purple sparks of electricity emanating from the coil. Then, standing on rubber garbage can lids for insulation and holding a fluorescent tube in one hand and a metal rod in the other, Grotba stuck the metal rod into the electric field and held the fluorescent tube in the air to show it glowing.

He told the participants that the reason he was able to conduct the electricity without being harmed was the high frequency of the electricity. High frequency electricity, he explained, “likes to ride the surface of objects” instead of entering them.

Grotba reminded the attendees that he has been trained and urged them not to attempt to replicate his demonstration. Donovan’s mother, Nicole, said she appreciates that Grotba often “points him (her son) to the safety aspect” of his projects.

She said that although she tries to remind her son to be careful, the warnings carry more weight when they come from Grotba, who has more expertise in electricity.

“It’s like the red phone in the White House,” she said. “Before you do anything, please …”

Take a look
Kyley McKeown, 14, of Normal, and her sister, Kelcey, assembled a robot during the 4-H Technology Academy at Heartland Community College, Saturday, March 8, 2008. Students from around the county built robots, programmed computers and did a variety of engineering projects during the day-long seminar. (Pantagraph, David Proeber)
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Reader comments on this story - 2 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

owl wrote on Mar 9, 2008 3:11 PM:

" Great programs for young people, 4-H. Does Barb, the elderly lady, still work in the office. She must have been there for close to 30 years by now. Keep up the great work. "

dAVEii wrote on Mar 9, 2008 11:32 AM:

" Make the best better, dude! "
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