Friday, February 11, two Moreno Valley College STEM Club teams won first and second place in the annual Wind Turbine Competition hosted by UCR’s Bourns School for Engineering. The program and the competition are designed to increase awareness and understanding of the importance of science, technology, engineering and math, and showcase careers linked to these study fields.

First Place Moreno Valley College Team 1 (l-r): Israel Soto, Manuel Belmonte, and Michael Aldret.

Second Place Moreno Valley College Team 2: Talar Nahabedian, Enrique Gurrola, Amissi Sadiki, Kyle Bilton, Jeff Shaw, Brent Malcomb, and Frederico Almaraz Vega.

Nine teams totaling 82 students took part in this year’s competition, making presentations and demonstrating their wind turbines. The competition focused on wind turbines because this technology requires the practical use of theories students study in mechanical, material, and electrical engineering, aerodynamics, physics, and math classes.

The STEM project has five goals:

• Increase student persistence and graduation rates in STEM fields
• Increase the transfer rate of targeted students in STEM fields
• Improve and increase STEM articulation agreements among institutions and four-year universities
• Increase student learning and success through revised and integrated academic and student support services
• Increase the number of targeted students who pursue careers in STEM fields.

The project is funded by the Department of Education's College Cost Reduction and Accessibility Act to bring more Hispanic and low-income community college students into the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Moreno Valley College’s STEM Counselor and Visiting Assistant Professor Sylvia Trejo and Bill Vega, STEM activity director, attended the competition with the MVC teams.

Photos provided by Alise Clouser, UCR.