JACKSONVILLE Fla. (Feb. 21, 2025) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), in partnership with The Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Jacksonville Post, hosted an Engineering Career Day for area Jacksonville high school students at the Jacksonville Public Main Library.
Engineering Career Day is an event that is held every February during National Engineers Week, which brings more than 100 students and teachers from Northeast Florida high schools together to compete in hands-on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) challenges. This year’s event brought together a total of 26 teams from 9 different high schools together to participate.
Laureen Borochaner, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District Engineering Division Chief, delivered the opening remarks for the event, highlighted the importance of Engineering Week and the positive impact it had on students interested in pursuing a career in the engineering field.
“We want them to have a passion for what we do as engineers and scientists, and to seriously consider joining the workforce,” said Borochaner.
The theme for this year’s Engineering Career Day was “Don’t Let Gravity Get You Down,” and was reflected in the two surprise problems presented to event participants in the form of an egg drop and water tower challenge. Teams were provided with construction materials and asked to create innovative solutions to the challenges presented.
40 volunteers from the Jacksonville District participated in the event, providing guidance to students as they constructed their various design projects as well as participating as judges for the two projects presented to the students who participated. Three engineers from USACE hosted an information panel in which they shared with students their experiences working for USACE, as well as how they entered the engineering field.
“Volunteering for this event has been important because it gives us a chance to be involved with students to show them how fun and creative engineering can be. I love how excited and intense the students get while working on their projects," said Amanda Marin, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers planning committee chairperson.
"They take a lot of pride in their designs and they do a great job thinking outside of the box and coming up with neat concepts. Developing the projects is also a good challenge for us! Coming up with the project statements is the task that takes the longest every year and we go through multiple iterations of writing and testing. It’s fun to try to think of ways the kids could outsmart us, so it keeps us on our toes!”
Col. Brandon Bowman, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District Commander presented the top three teams with medals and the overall winners of the competition with a trophy to the winning school, Bolles High School. The school will display the trophy until the competition next year.
(The public can obtain news, updates and information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District on the district’s website at https://www.saj.usace.army.mil/, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/JacksonvilleDistrict and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JaxStrong.’