The Tribune

FREEPORT – Employees of the Grand Bahama Shipyard have lent their expertise to the youth of Grand Bahama, who have been working on the 15th annual SECME Mousetrap Car and Bottle Rocket Competition.

Avelaino McGibbon, the first Grand Bahama graduate of Kettering University and now an engineer at the shipyard, has played an integral part in supporting the Grand Bahama school teams who competed this year in the renowned science event.

Mr McGibbon joined forces with Dennis Knowles of the Rotary Club of Lucaya, the SECME co-ordinator for Grand Bahama.

Mr Knowles said the SECME was established in 1975 and now brings together 40 universities, many industries and government agencies, 900 schools and more than 20,000 students in America, Jamaica and the Bahamas.

The strict rules of the competition have been supported over the past few years through the technical experience of one of the GB Shipyard staff.

Mr McGibbon has designed and built tools to support the Mouse Trap and Model Rocket competition events and he has visited the schools to promote science and technology.

He joined the Grand Bahama shipyard team in March 2012 and now continues the support as part of the Shipyard team.

In particular, the GB Shipyard supported two specific events in the competition. The Mousetrap Car competition required the students to build cars that are propelled by the spring of a mousetrap.

For the Water Bottle Rocket, students must build a rocket that must meet strict predetermined specifications. The competition not only includes the item but technical drawings and reports.

Mr McGibbon and Mr Knowles worked with all of the Grand Bahama teams on the rocket launcher control station and recent rocket rules compliance gauge that assists all of the teams during the competition.

Working with adults such as Mr McGibbon gives the students valuable exposure to the sciences and practical implementation.

“Each year we attempt to assist the teams to become more compliant with the rules and also try to improve the measurement process with more redundancy and rechecking,” he said.

Mr McGibbon said he was pleased with the continuous improvement in the designs, participation and level of ingenuity from all the participating schools.

“The Bahamas has placed well in previous years when the winning team members of the Mouse Trap Car competition competed in USA. The Water Rocket competitors are showing steady and continuous improvement,” he said.

In addition to Mr McGibbon, other members of GB Shipyard worked with the youth throughout the year to help them be prepared for competition. Ed Pavey, director of technical and planning, played an integral role by approving the shipyard’s ongoing support of the programme and supported the technical aspects of designing the gauge.

“This type of educational competition is exactly what the youth of Grand Bahama needs to further their presence in the arena of science and technology,” said Mr Pavey. “Witnessing this competition for the first time was truly invigorating and motivating. Grand Bahama Shipyard, with its new association with the Bahamas Society of Engineers, pledges continued support for next year’s competition and vows to become the event’s largest corporate sponsor and urges other corporate entities to become involved in such a worthy cause.”

Building assistance was provided by Barry Fox of the carpentry department at the shipyard.

The winning senior and junior teams will compete in the 37th annual SECME National Student Engineering Competition, June 16-23 in Daytona Beach, Florida.