The local school board earlier this month honored a handful of students who competed in and won a one-of-a-kind educational event sponsored by Summit Engineering, PLLC, a structural engineering firm based in Portsmouth, N.H.
The event, which took place at New Franklin Elementary School in mid-March, was held in recognition of Pi Day, which is typically recognized on March 14th. The day, a U.S. Holiday, is a celebration of mathematics as March 14 or 3/14 represents the first three numerical digits of Pi (3.14). [Pi is an irrational number and has a limitless number of digits after the decimal place.] Most people round Pi to 3.14.
As a locally based structural engineering consulting firm, Summit sponsored the educational event as a way of encouraging students to understand the importance of Science and Math comprehension – which happens to be a big topic among the engineering community. Click here to view the original article we posted about the event.
The winning students were honored during a special ceremony held in front of the Portsmouth School Board on April 8. The ceremony was aired live on the city’s public access channel. It was also recorded and is featured on city’s website.
The three New Franklin Elementary School students – Sydney Pettis, Avery Ruhnke and Emma Ayotte – also got a chance to show off their winning memorization skills on March 14 at their school’s Pi Day competition. Ayotte, a fifth grader, became the school champion by reciting 117 digits. Click here to see for yourself.
The recognition ceremony was also the subject of an article in The Portsmouth Herald – an award winning local daily newspaper.
Tony Coviello, co-owner of Summit Engineering, was also on hand for the recognition ceremony, telling the School Board that he hopes to expand the competition in the years to come with the help of teachers, students and businesses from throughout the community.
“Here we have a chance where we can get kids excited about science, technology, engineering and math at a young age,” said Coviello. “Next year we hope to open it to the other elementary schools. It’s been a really remarkable activity for the kids.”
Click here to learn more about Summit, as well as what the structural engineering firm does throughout the community.
