Update: Wheelchair Computer Desk Feedback

 Back in February, we posted a blog describing the completion and delivery of our wheelchair computer desk to PathPoint. After a few weeks, we were finally able to get Mr. Meadth and Mr. Gil Addison together with his team to go over the design and get that long-awaited feedback. Feedback from the end user is […]

Wheelchair Computer Desk: Delivered!

 Following on from our last post, we’d like to provide an update: the custom computer desk for Gil Addison at PathPoint was recently delivered, bringing that particular project to a close. This desk raises up and down to any given height using an electrically driven linear actuator. The wheelchair user carries the remote control key […]

Design, Build, Fly!

Our students can’t be together in person right now, but nothing is going to stop them finishing the capstone design/build/fly project for the 2019-2020 year. With digital tools in their hands and computer-controlled manufacturing equipment at the other end, our budding engineers, now sheltered in place, are experiencing the reality of a modern workflow. Even […]

Collaboration with the Physical Education Department

(The fourth in our student blog series comes from Nolan in 11th Grade, and gives the final update on a project that was begun last year.) Last year, the focus of the Advanced Engineering I group (juniors and seniors) of the Providence Engineering Academy was statics, or the branch of physics associated with objects at […]

Field Trip to Peabody Stadium

After many months of trying, the Providence Engineering Academy was finally able to secure a field trip to see… well, a field! Peabody Stadium, an integral part of the sporting complex at Santa Barbara High School for almost 100 years, has been greatly in need of renewal for a range of reasons—regular flooding, surface maintenance, […]

Tension + Integrity = Tensegrity

The Providence Engineering Academy seeks every year to put skills to use for the benefit of the community. From designing playground equipment to running science lessons, “we have an obligation to turn our skills outward to the world around us; we learn not for our own sakes” (quoted from the Engineering Academy application). This year, […]

MS Bridges: Welcome to Mr. Eves!

Joining us this year at Providence is the highly qualified Mr. Matt Eves. A long-time friend of Mr. Meadth, Mr. Eves brings his experiences in engineering and business to the AP Calculus AB class with our seniors, and the Intro to Engineering class with the middle schoolers. Mr. Eves wasted no time in getting down to […]

Summer Camp 2018

It was such a roaring success the first time that we just had to do it all over again! The second annual Providence Engineering Summer Camp finished today, and the brightly lit robot city took wings with our special theme: SPACE. We all know it’s the final frontier, and our fifteen campers interpreted this idea in […]

Architectural Competition in Santa Ynez

If you had been lurking around the Upper Campus at 6:55 am on Tuesday the 13th of March, braving the rain and stumbling about in the dark, you might just have caught sight of a strange and unusual thing: eight high school students and one teacher loading up into a white van. Wielding scale rulers, […]

Gliders: In Production!

A quick update on our Advanced Engineering II glider project: the students are currently hard at work translating their theoretical calculations into hand-made reality. The problem is at first daunting; how do you create the various parts of a flying machine, according to a specific design? There are dozens of materials that might be chosen […]