Resurrected SAME team presents with success

emmaherold SAME, or Society of American Military Engineers, challenges students to create innovative engineering or architecture designs. The design the team created? An elevated indoor track at Marian. “The Marian Skywalk travels through the Main Gym, onto the existing roof of the school, and loops back to the Main Gym through the Quad. The whole…

mariandigitalnetwork

May 1, 2016

2–3 minutes

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SAME, or Society of American Military Engineers, challenges students to create innovative engineering or architecture designs. The design the team created? An elevated indoor track at Marian.

“The Marian Skywalk travels through the Main Gym, onto the existing roof of the school, and loops back to the Main Gym through the Quad. The whole track is completely enclosed and is 245 meters long. We believe the track would not only benefit students, but it would benefit the faculty, staff, sisters, and the entire Marian community,” freshman Audrey Laney said. These plans have been creatively and carefully thought out since September. This year’s team was Marian’s first to compete since 2007.

The team presented its proposal on March 17 at the Scott Conference Center on the UNO campus. At this competition, the team had to do a 20-minute presentation in front of judges, all of whom are professional engineers and architects.

**SAME Victory Pose:** The team poses with physics teacher Mr. Matthew Winterboer at its competition in March. There are eight girls on the team (left to right) Alexis Jordan ’19, Audrey Laney ’19, Alison Monzu ’18, Mr. Winterboer, Sarah Villarreal ’17, Vienna Tang ’27, Lily Foley ’17 and Isabelle Swanson ’17. Not pictured: Maddie Mingo ’17. photo courtesy of Mrs. Elizabeth Foley

Not only was this Marian’s first competition in nearly 10 years, the team won first place out of 17 teams.

The award included a first place trophy, $1,500 cash prize for the club, and $1,500 in scholarship money to be distributed to seniors in the club next year, as there were no seniors in the club this year.

“We plan to save the money for field trips and technology for next year. We didn’t take
any big field trips this year, but with $1,500 we could do a lot more. We were even thinking about buying a 3D printer. The money would also go to our pizza fund,” Laney continued.

Part of the program matches teams up with professional engineers and architects as mentors. Both mentors were Marian alums. The professional engineer, Sarah Shay Gudeman ‘01, and the professional architect, Stephanie Peterson ‘01, helped this team work its way to victory.

“I thought the presentation went great. I was very impressed with the professionalism that the team put out,” physics teacher and moderator Mr. Matthew Winterboer said.

The SAME team represented Marian well and will continue to excel in the STEM field!