On Sunday, May 29, 2016, a group of Webb students volunteered their time at the Ronald McDonald House of Long Island in New Hyde Park.

The mission of The Ronald McDonald House of Long Island is to provide comfort and shelter for families experiencing the pain of having a sick child in a local hospital. The Ronald McDonald House provides the parents and siblings of these sick children with a temporary haven in a secure and comfortable environment among other families sharing a similar burden.

During their visit at The Ronald McDonald House, Webbies cooked a big brunch for the families. The brunch included bagels, fruit salad, eggs, breakfast potatoes, and more.

Webbies who volunteered at the event said that cooking the brunch was a great way to bring smiles to families going through a difficult time.

On Wednesday, May 18, 2016, internationally recognized naval architect and business leader Christopher J. Wiernicki delivered an inspiring Zeien Lecture at Webb Institute.

Wiernicki’s lecture was not of the technical sense, as most Zeien Lectures are. His lecture was about the incredible story of his father, John Wiernicki, a Polish underground fighter who was captured by the Gestapo and was then shipped to infamous concentration camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald. Wiernicki’s chilling story about his father’s trials and tribulations was about life, death, survival, perseverance, and making a difference in the world in the face of adversity.

Prior to his Zeien Lecture at Webb, Wiernicki says he had never spoke about his father’s story in public before. Throughout the lecture, Wiernicki told his father’s story of survival during World War II and his life after, showing personal family photographs, video clips, and sharing details from his father’s memoir, “War in the Shadow of Auschwitz”. Wiernicki also shared his father’s watercolor paintings for the first time, which illustrated the horrors of “life” at the concentration camps. Read more…

For the past two weeks, Will Schneider and Owen Collier, two seniors from the Friends Academy in Locust Valley, have been spending their Independent Service Program (ISP) time volunteering at Webb Institute.

While at Webb, Will and Owen have been working on a variety of projects. So far, they have created an electric boat, a sailboat and a crane.  In addition to creating some great models, Will and Owen have been assisting in developing the curriculum for Webb’s new Summer Engineering Academy (SEA) Program.

After graduating from Friends Academy this June, both students will be heading off to college. Owen plans to study economics, while Will plans to major in mechanical engineering.

(photo: The Class of 2016 working on a diesel engine during a class trip to Kings Point, NY)

Parametric Optimization of a Kiteboarding Hydrofoil Using CFD

Zachary Backas

The goal of this thesis is to improve the performance of a kiteboarding hydrofoil, or kitefoil, by building a parametric model based on the initial geometry and optimizing it using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This thesis will outline a procedure for conducting optimization  of parametric models in CFD. Using base geometry donated by the kitefoil manufacturer Deltafoil, a parametric model will be developed in the optimization CAESES to be tested and improved using CFD. Ultimately, the final optimized geometry produced will be compared to the initial geometry in CFD to assess the effectiveness of the optimization procedure.

Read more…

On Saturday, May 7, 2016, Webb Institute welcomed sixth and seventh grade students from The Bridges Academy in West Islip, for a SeaPerch Fun Day event. Those students were enrolled in a full-year SeaPerch Program at their school, and the day’s event capped off their year-long project.

The SeaPerch program is an innovative underwater robotics program that equips teachers and students with the resources they need to build an underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) in an in-school or out-of-school setting. The program aims to provide students with the opportunity to learn about robotics, engineering, science and mathematics (STEM), while building an underwater ROV as part of a science and engineering technology curriculum.

During the SeaPerch Fun Day, the students participated in a variety of fun in-water challenges and activities at Webb using the ROVs they built at their school during the year. The challenges, designed by Webb students, included locating a ship’s black box, retrieving objects, capping an oil well, and robot soccer. Webb students ran the events and served as technical advisors to the teams from The Bridge Academy. Once the challenges were completed, an awards ceremony took place to crown the winners.

“Our students really enjoyed working one-on-one with the kids from The Bridges Academy  and sharing their knowledge of engineering with them,” said Matt Werner, Dean at Webb Institute.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this great educational event, and helped to make it a fun day.

For more information about SeaPerch, please visit their website.

To view SeaPerch Photo Gallery