Employees in Williams Four Corners Area have a strong legacy of community volunteerism. But when it comes to outreach to kids that promotes science, technology, engineering and math, our employees win awards.
Organizers of the Discovery Fair recognized Williams with the festival’s Best Engineering Award for student engagement.
For the second year, Williams was a sponsor of the Discovery Festival, a STEM-oriented trade show for middle and junior high students in Farmington, NM. The annual event is organized by Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Juan County. Once again Williams brought home honors for our booth and the STEM exercises organized by employee volunteers. This year, organizers recognized Williams with the festival’s Best Engineering Award for student engagement.
The engineering addition to this year’s booth was a student-driven “pig race.” Williams’ FCA engineers and technical staff designed pipelines made from clear PVC tubing, using water balloons for pipeline pigs, with magnets inside for the timer. Two pipelines were placed side-by-side and bicycle pumps were used by competing students to push the pigs through the pipes. The start and finish timing mechanisms were crafted from household items. To further educate students about the pipeline industry, water flowed through the tubing that allowed the pig to clean out the pipe.
Nathan Weimer, a Williams engineer in the Four Corners Area, provides a Discovery Festival participant instructions and a pipeline pig made from a water balloon.
In addition to the pig race, employees outfitted a Tesla coil to include a keyboard, from which students could make their own music through the coil. Also the Williams’ booth featured a light board that tested student reflexes.
Our award-winning employees who participated in designing, building or staffing the Williams’ Discovery Festival booth included Terry Goossen, Detrick Lund, Jacob Herzog, Nathan Weimer, Andrew Yazzie, Jesus Ballon, Mike Hannan, Amanda Prugh and Dan Engert.